🇨🇭Switzerland Considers Bitcoin as Reserve Asset, Ethena Targets TradFi & Morgan Stanley Exploring Crypto

Sunday is here.

Welcome back to another newsletter from us at The Merge.

Tokenisation News

⚱️ Switzerland considers adding Bitcoin as a reserve asset

🪻Ethena launches institutional stablecoin & expands into digital banking with new Telegram payment features

🔭 Morgan Stanley exploring crypto offering

☕️ The First On-Chain Coffee Transaction

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Global Market Overview

Real World Assets on-chain (excl stablecoins) are worth $15.31 billion (↑11.97% from last month).

There are 81,495 Total Asset Holders (↑2.6% from last month).

• $202.24b is in Stablecoins

• $9.66b is within Private Credit

• $4.09b is in US Treasury Debt

• $1.07b is in Commodities

• $113.1m is in Global Bonds

• $11.97m is in Stocks

The top 3 networks are 🥇Ethereum ($124.2b in Total Value Locked) 🥈Tron ($59b in TVL) & 🥉Arbitrum ($5.8b in TVL).

Fancy taking a look for yourself? Check it out here.

So, what’s being tokenised this week?

Private Credit

Currently, there are $9.6 billion in active-value loans and $16.4 billion in total loan value across all protocols.

As of today, the top 3 current protocols with outstanding loans are 🥇Figure ($9.1b)🥈Maple Finance ($272m) &🥉Centrifuge ($79m).

Top stories this week?

🔭 Morgan Stanley exploring crypto offering

E-TRADE, owned by Morgan Stanley following a $13 billion acquisition, is reportedly exploring adding cryptocurrency trading to its platform.

They're not alone - Charles Schwab is considering similar moves, following competitors like Fidelity, which has been offering Bitcoin and Ethereum trading since 2018.

Robinhood has taken an even bolder approach, recently acquiring European crypto exchange Bitstamp for $200 million and showing interest in stablecoin initiatives, despite receiving SEC scrutiny.

Stablecoins

Currently, the market cap of stablecoins is $203.6 billion (↑4.21% from last month).

As of today, it makes up 0.97% (↑4.21% from last month) of all M2 Money Supply with Monthly Transfer Volume totalling $4.58 trillion (↑104.77% from last month).

The top 3 current entities are 🥇Tether ($138.3b)🥈Circle ($42.5b) &🥉Ethena ($5.89b).

Top stories this week?

🪻Ethena launches institutional stablecoin IUSDe

Ethena is making waves in the financial sector with their upcoming regulated savings product (iUSDe). The standout feature? A roughly 20% annual yield on dollars, with an interesting twist - the yields actually increase when interest rates drop. They're planning to launch in Q1 with some significant partnerships.

Their vision extends beyond just yields - they're developing a user-friendly banking experience within Telegram, combining high-yield savings with practical payment features.

Their growth has been remarkable:

• Reached $6 billion in assets in just 10 months

• Running at $1.2 billion annual revenue

• Second-fastest crypto startup to hit $100M revenue

• Commands 50% of Pendle's Total Value Locked

• Quickly overtook USDC on Bybit

• Generates 25% of Sky's revenue

Rather than just being another stablecoin project, Ethena seems positioned to become a crucial bridge between traditional finance yields and crypto infrastructure. Given their strong execution so far, 2025 could be a significant year for their growth.

Commodities

Currently, the market cap of commodities is $1.07b (↑0.62% from last month).

As of today, the Monthly Transfer Volume totals $312.7m (↑12.75% from last month). with 58.6k addresses that are current holders.

The top 3 current entities are 🥇Paxos ($529m)🥈Tether ($516.6m) & 🥉Comtech Gold ($11.68m).

Top stories this week?

☕️ The First On-Chain Coffee Transaction

AgriDex is revolutionizing agricultural trade on Solana, with their first successful coffee transaction between the UK and South Africa.

Through their platform, Tiki Tonga Coffee demonstrated how farmers and small businesses can benefit from near-instant payments, reduced fees (0.5%), and paperless transactions.

The platform plans to expand into livestock and wine trading, aiming to level the playing field for agricultural businesses traditionally disadvantaged by conventional systems.

Bonds

Currently, the total value of bonds is $113.1m (↑0.73% from last month).

As of today, the Average Yield to Maturity is 0%. There are 623 Holders (↓2.89% from last week).

The top 3 current entities are 🥇Spiko ($86.m)🥈 Backed Finance ($20.12m)🥉 OpenTrade ($6.37m).

Top stories this week?

⚱️ Switzerland considers adding Bitcoin as a reserve asset

Switzerland is taking a bold step in the crypto world, considering adding Bitcoin to its national reserves alongside its existing $27 billion in gold.

This innovative proposal now needs to gather 100,000 Swiss signatures by June 2025 to trigger a national referendum – a key feature of Switzerland's direct democracy.

If successful, the proposal would move to the Federal Assembly, potentially making Switzerland one of the first nations to hold Bitcoin in its treasury officially. 

Stocks

Currently, the total value of stocks is $11.97m (↓9.86% from last week).

As of today, the Monthly Transfer Volume totals $22.86m (↑423.96% from last month🔥) with 119 Active Addresses and 921 Current Holders.

The top 3 current entities are 🥇Coinbase Global ($5.7m)🥈iShares Core S&P 500 ($3.4m) &🥉Nvidia ($1.4m).

Weekly Resource List

👻 Phantom Wallet: Beginner-Friendly Wallet

Multiple chains, one wallet. No need for switching. Seamlessly access the largest NFT marketplaces. A multi-chain wallet that helps you explore web3, use apps, and buy, store, and trade crypto and NFTs across Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon. (link) 

💳 Coinbase Wallet: The Crypto Wallet of Choice

You’ve more than likely heard and probably used Coinbase, so no introduction is needed. This is by far one of the easiest and non-crypto native wallets to be picked up and used by anyone. They even have a ‘Simple Mode’ for beginners. (link) 

🌐 RWA.xyz: On-Chain RWA Analytics

Explore tokenised real-world assets and the investors, issuers and service providers participating in public blockchains. View protocol statistics, industry aggregate metrics, and the issuers all in one place (link)

🔎 Santiment: Crypto Intelligence Tool

A behaviour analytics platform for crypto, sourcing on-chain, social and development information on thousands of coins, including market signals. For RWA’s insights check out this (link) 

As always, thanks for reading.

Vote below and let us know your thoughts this week —we’d love to hear from you.

See you next Sunday,

Merge