All Been Crypto — Week 31 Oct 2025
A down week with BTC at 110k -1.5% while ETH at 3800 -2.5%. Only major outperformer remains ZEC +40% as the narrative continues to gain traction HBAR was +15% on their first spot ETF launch on the flipside ENA continued bleeding -16%. DAT purchases have slowed down significantly and some are even selling assets to buy back stock to close the NAV discount, but new ALT DATs still launching. We also had new ALT ETFs launch this week as mentioned HBAR and LTC but the staked SOL ones were the ones stealing the limelight attracting >300mm. In the weekly headlines I’ll dig deeper on stablecoins as it has been all encompassing this week, besides that we had Polymarket CMO confirming POLY airdrop plans and of course Mt. Gox pushing back repayment deadline by another year. Enjoy reading!
Bat Tai Chi — btc21@mail.com
HEADLINES:
Solana Western Union
So Solana team is celebrating a major victory for Western Union picking the chain as primary infra to launch their own stablecoin. US Dollar Payment Token USDPT is set to go live in 1H26 issued via Anchorage Digital. While no one in 2025 is surprised these huge payment giants are leveraging stablecoin infra there has been a bit of controversy with this one. Particularly as CT discovered that there’s obviously grants in place for enterprises choosing various infra. Talk is that SOL foundation paid 50mm to Western Union to pick them. Then there was also a bit confusion a day post press release when we found out Western Union also filed a trademark for ‘WUUSD’ raising questions about their overall stable strategy. And of course we have more of these headlines:
Mastercard to acquire Zerohash for 2bn
On of the worlds largest fintechs and card issuers is in talks to up their stablecoin integration via a sizable M&A. Zerohash is a stablecoin infa play that fits in very well into the narrative. It rhymes with Stripes Bridge acquisition and is a sign that Mastercard is making serious strides into integration stables to their business model. Also probably ruling out them joining Tempo for building their own stable. And I don’t have to tell you that Visa is already seeing massive growth in stablecoin card usage and expanding their offering and support, with PYUSD quietly doubled to close to 3bn in October mainly coz of the growth on SOL.
Launch of ALT Stablecoins (non USD denominated)
Stablecoins have been a killer product revolutionizing the Eurodollar market and a very common theme in my weeklies. But till now it’s very much a USD only game, there’s some EUR stablecoins but even they are insignificant in volumes not to speak of any other currency. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for growth. We had this week the first JPY stablecoin launch JPYC. It’s issued by a small start up with big ambitions looking to get to 10 trillion yen (66bn USD) worth of TVL over the next 3 years. The playbook is simple make money on the JGBs (Japan Government Bonds) that are backing the stable but of course yields are much lower than with Tbills. They picked Ethereum and Polygon for issuance and it looks like they got <8mm market cap right now. Korea had their first stablecoin launch too with KRWQ picking Base the the chain of choice. This time it’s feels more crypto native with IQ partnering with Frax with the caveat that it’s actually not offered to Korean residents for compliance reasons. But of course in permissionless DeFi you can swap on Aerodrome if you want to. Market cap is tiny though with <100k. And in another nation state stablecoin headline the tiny former Soview Union country Kyrgyzstan made headlines with their own national stablecoin They had already singed a partnership with non other than CZ in April this year but now getting ready to launch on you can guess what chain.
QUOTES:
At the end of the Coinbase earnings call today, Brian Armstrong pulled up the mention market and rattled off all the words that weren’t said yet What a wild time to be alive
Tyrael — Co-Founder/COO @crypto_raiders @predictshark
On October 20th, I had a one-hour call with @cecilia_hsueh, who has publicly taken on the role of trying to resolve the MEXC issue. [..] she indicated MEXC was “open” to releasing the funds — if I helped them control the narrative. It was obvious: they want me to say, “I broke the rules, but MEXC was nice enough to return the money.”
The White Whale
Lighter is incredible validation of the L2 roadmap. Finally — a badass team of engineers built an app specific L2 using zk that’s complimentary not competitive to Ethereum, a use case ppl want (perps), and UX as good as any CEX. This upcoming feature alone is a game changer… Keep ETH on Ethereum yet use it as collateral to trade perps.
Ryan Sean Adams — Bankless Podcast
All Been Crypto — Week 31 Oct 2025 was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.