Stablecoin

Canada's Department of Finance confirmed Bill C-15 has received Royal Assent, opening the door to a federal stablecoin regime overseen by the Bank of Canada. The plan would require fiat-backed issuers to register, hold 1:1 reserves, and offer par-value redemptions, while restricting yield and certain marketing. Authorities expect consultations over the next 12 to 18 months, with full rollout targeted for 2027.

Stablecoin supply rose by about $8 billion to a record $315 billion in Q1, as stablecoins captured 75% of total crypto trading volume and transaction volume exceeded $28 trillion. Retail-sized transfers fell 16% while bots represented roughly 76% of stablecoin transaction volume. USDC supply increased by around $2 billion, whereas USDT supply declined by about $3 billion.

On April 2, 2026, the People's Bank of China approved 12 additional commercial banks to operate the e-CNY, expanding the operator roster to 22. The digital yuan was reclassified to M1 on January 1, 2026 and now accrues interest for verified wallets, while mBridge has processed over $55 billion in cross-border volume with 95% settled in e-CNY. PBOC data through late 2025 shows 16.7 trillion yuan ($2.4 trillion) in cumulative transactions, yet e-CNY remains about 0.16% of China's M0 money supply.

On April 2 in New York, the Linux Foundation said it created the x402 Foundation and accepted Coinbase's contribution of the x402 protocol to set up neutral, open-source governance for a proposed "payments over HTTP" standard. The protocol is intended to embed payments into web interactions so apps, APIs, and AI agents can exchange value within typical HTTP-based workflows. The announcement was made at the MCP Dev Summit North America.

Cardano is currently the 13th-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, with Monero (XMR) ranked 14th and still about $2.5 billion short of taking the No. 13 spot. Cardano's market cap stands at $8.53 billion versus Monero's $6 billion, while prices were listed at $0.236 for ADA (down 4.46% in 24 hours) and $326 for XMR (down 3.26% in 24 hours).

CaixaBank has obtained authorization under the EU's MiCA framework to operate as a crypto-asset service provider. The approval enables the Spanish bank to offer customers crypto custody, trading-related order execution, and transfers, with a rollout planned in the coming months through its digital banking platform.

On Thursday, SoFi Technologies launched SoFi Big Business Banking, enabling U.S. enterprises to hold deposits, move money, and settle in fiat, SoFiUSD, and select cryptocurrencies 24/7 from SoFi Bank, N.A. The company says the platform combines a nationally chartered bank’s regulatory framework with API-based rails designed to reduce settlement delays tied to traditional banking hours.

Drift Protocol on Solana lost about $285 million in an exploit, including stablecoins such as Circle's USDC. ZachXBT said Circle failed to freeze $230 million USDC that was bridged from Solana to Ethereum via CCTP and claimed it had roughly six hours to act. Multiple protocols reportedly paused activity after the incident, while Circle's CRCL stock extended a decline with MFI falling to 19 and BBP indicating seller dominance.

Ethereum recorded a new quarterly high of 200.4 million transactions in Q1 2026, up about 43% versus the prior quarter. Daily activity peaked at 2.897 million transactions on February 7, 2026, then eased to about 2.363 million by April 2. The quarter's rise coincided with 12.6 million active addresses between January 1 and March 31 and an Ethereum stablecoin market cap near $164.4 billion.

Ripio founder and CEO Sebastián Serrano argues that tokenization delivers the most value when applied to already-liquid, high-demand assets such as US dollars, government bonds and major financial instruments. He says USD-backed stablecoins succeeded because they upgraded existing rails where trillions already move, while pilots for tokenized Treasury bills, currencies and stocks follow the same logic. By contrast, he contends that illiquid, bespoke assets like many NFTs and niche RWAs struggle to generate deep markets, reliable collateral use and broad network effects.