It has been a busy week in the fintech space. Joining me is Anastasia Kinsky, Fintech TV correspondent and editor of The Signal newsletter. Anastasia, welcome to the show. There was a bill in Congress meant to set clear crypto rules — but it has now been pushed back to September. Why the delay and what is still standing in the way?
Great to be back. Yes — the whole world has been looking to the US to consolidate their regulatory rulebook for crypto. The GENIUS Act has already gone through, setting the rules for the stablecoin space. But the Clarity Act goes further — it covers who governs the crypto space, whether that is the SEC, the CFTC, or a blend of both, and all the rules governing exchanges, issuance, and custodians. There have been two pain points. First, traditional finance has pushed back on rules around how deposits are kept and what stablecoin issuers would be able to do — and whether that brings them too close to becoming a bank. Second is ethics — Democrats have pushed back strongly on the absence of ethics provisions, and then on how those provisions are enforced. They have not reached agreement. As a result, the vote has been delayed. Today is the last day the Senate is in session. They break for recess and return in September, with only a couple of weeks before the midterm election schedule completely dominates. If the crypto space wants this legislation in 2026, that window is tight. If not, we are looking at a 2027 vote.
A security flaw in a popular Bitcoin wallet device let hackers steal over $114 million and went unnoticed for years. How did this happen and what should people with these devices do now?
ColdCard is one of the most trusted hardware wallets in the space, so to see it taken down is a difficult thing to watch. Researchers found a flaw going back to 2021 in which the random number generator used to create private keys had weaknesses in it. That weak randomness meant that in theory, someone could work out your private keys without ever touching your wallet. Quietly, hackers have been stealing money from these wallets over several years in four separate ways — up to $115 million in total. It is a devastating story but it also raises important questions about the standards around security for self-custody and cold wallets, and how we move that forward while addressing the misconceptions that still exist around this space.
Big banks like Wells Fargo, JPMorgan, and Citi are all moving into digital currency and payment companies are getting in on it too. What does this tell us about where money and payments are headed?
Every week I say it has been a big week for digital payments and then it happens again. Wells Fargo just announced they are launching tokenised deposits for their corporate clients this autumn — that is a very exciting milestone. That joins JP Morgan, Citibank, and the Clearinghouse network, which is a consortium of different banks working together on tokenised deposits. And Mastercard has fully completed its acquisition of a stablecoin infrastructure company — they process roughly $30 billion in annualised stablecoin volume across 130 markets. This puts Mastercard at the real forefront of payment infrastructure in stablecoins and gives them the most comprehensive private stablecoin settlement infrastructure of any incumbent payment network. And then Western Union and Rain have finally launched their stable card in 37 markets. Altogether, these three stories tell you a clear direction — it is August, everyone is on holiday, and yet digital payments are still grabbing the headlines and still working hard to transform how money moves across the world.
Thank you Anastasia. And do not miss anything — sign up for The Signal newsletter at Fintech TV to stay ahead of the biggest stories shaping fintech.
