🧨 Tether's USDT to Become Illegal from December 30th?

Sunday is here.

Welcome back to another newsletter from us at The Merge.

Tokenisation News

🧨 Tether To Become Illegal from Tomorrow in line with MiCA for 2025?

🧮 Ethena launches BlackRock-backed USDtb

🇷🇺 Russia’s Largest Bank Joins in a Digital Ruble Pilot

Read Time: 4 Minutes

Global Market Overview

Real World Assets on-chain (excl stablecoins) are worth $14.84 billion (↑9.23% from last month).

There are 80,951 Total Asset Holders (↑2.44% from last month).

• $203.74b is in Stablecoins

• $9.49b is within Private Credit

• $4.08b is in US Treasury Debt

• $1.05b is in Commodities

• $112.37m is in Global Bonds

• $11.80m is in Stocks

The top 3 networks are 🥇Ethereum ($123.2b in Total Value Locked) 🥈Tron ($60.2b in TVL) & 🥉Arbitrum ($6.12b in TVL).

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

So, what’s being tokenised this week?

Private Credit

Currently, there are $9.49 billion in active-value loans and $16.2 billion in total loan value across all protocols.

As of today, the top 3 current protocols with outstanding loans are 🥇Figure ($8.9b)🥈Maple Finance ($269m) &🥉Centrifuge ($77m).

Top stories this week?

🧮 Ethena launches BlackRock-backed USDtb

BlackRock's entry into the stablecoin market through USDtb represents a significant milestone for crypto legitimacy.

The stablecoin is 90% backed by BlackRock's BUIDL fund, offering institutional-grade security and potentially unlimited scaling capacity.

For investors, USDtb provides a unique combination of traditional finance backing with crypto utility, launching across multiple chains including Ethereum, Base, Solana, and Arbitrum.

The project's credibility is reinforced by multiple security audits and partnerships with major crypto institutions like Cumberland and Wintermute.

This marks the first time BlackRock has provided backing for a stablecoin, signalling growing institutional acceptance of digital assets and offering traders a new stablecoin option with traditional finance underpinning.

Stablecoins

Currently, the market cap of stablecoins is $203.7 billion (↑6.62% from last month).

As of today, it makes up 0.97% (↑6.62% from last month) of all M2 Money Supply with Monthly Transfer Volume totalling $2.92 trillion (↑33.1% from last month).

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

Top stories this week?

🧨 Tether To Become Illegal from Tomorrow in line with MiCA?

While it might seem concerning that Coinbase is delisting USDT ahead of the new EU regulations, there's actually no need to panic.

Here's the thing - Tether isn't becoming illegal in Europe when 2025 rolls around.

The new MiCA regulations are giving everyone plenty of time to adjust, with a transition period stretching from 6 to 18 months.

It's worth noting that Coinbase's decision isn't really setting a trend - they're pretty much-going solo on this one, and it probably has something to do with their investment in Circle (who issues USDC).

All the other major exchanges are taking a more measured approach, waiting to see how things shake out with the regulations.

So for now, European investors can breathe easy and keep using USDT while everyone works out the details during this transition period.

Commodities

Currently, the market cap of commodities is $1.05b (↓0.24% from last month).

As of today, the Monthly Transfer Volume totals $263m (↓5.95% from last month) with 58.6k addresses that are current holders.

The top 3 current entities are 🥇Paxos ($525m)🥈Tether ($508.3m) & 🥉Comtech Gold ($11.36m).

Bonds

Currently, the total value of bonds is $112.37m (↓1.03% from last week)

As of today, the Average Yield to Maturity is 0%. There are 605 Holders (↓1.98% from last week).

The top 3 current entities are 🥇Spiko ($85.7m)🥈 Backed Finance ($20.25m)🥉 OpenTrade ($6.37m).

Top stories this week?

🇷🇺 Russia’s Largest Bank Joins in a Digital Ruble Pilot

Russia is launching a digital ruble that will exist alongside physical cash and regular bank accounts, marking one of the most ambitious central bank digital currency (CBDC) rollouts globally. What makes this particularly noteworthy is the mandatory approach - by July 2025, all major Russian banks must offer digital ruble services to their customers or face penalties.

The project is already gaining serious traction, with 15 banks now participating (including Russia's largest lender, Sberbank) and testing has expanded from 600 to 9,000 participants.

The results of this rollout could serve as a crucial blueprint for other countries considering their own digital currency initiatives, potentially reshaping how we think about and use money in the digital age.

Stocks

Currently, the total value of stocks is $11.80m (↑2.79% from last month).

As of today, the Monthly Transfer Volume totals $15.33m (↑1353.11% from last month🔥) with 118 Active Addresses and 901 Current Holders.

The top 3 current entities are 🥇Coinbase Global ($5.6m)🥈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