Morning minute: the settings don’t come, they are there

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analyzes and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s most important news:

• Crypto majors fell 2-3% on the day; BTC falls below $90,000
• ZEC fell 19% after news that its developer team resigned and planned to start a new co
• Polymarket has announced an exclusive partnership with WSJ and DowJones
• World Liberty Fi has applied for a US national trust bank charter
• MoonPay partnered with Rumble to launch Rumble Wallet, makers that started accepting Bitcoin

🟢 The settings don’t come, they are there

Four announcements yesterday made it crystal clear: TradFi is accelerating towards crypto.

📌 What happened

There were four big headlines on Wednesday featuring three major TradFi banks and a US state, each highlighting cryptocurrency adoption in different ways.

• JPMorgan has announced that JPM will launch Coin on the Canton Network and extend its blockchain-based settlement system to a broader, interoperable financial network.
• Barclays invested in Ubyx, a startup focused on enabling banks and payment companies to settle transactions using stablecoins over existing financial rails.
• Morgan Stanley filed with the SEC for an Ethereum Trust (ETH ETF) that adds ETH exposure in addition to the recent Bitcoin and Solana filings.
• The state of Wyoming confirmed the launch of its state-backed stablecoin, FRNT, on Solana, which is one of the most concrete examples yet of a US government agency deploying crypto infrastructure.

It was a busy day.

🧠 Why it matters

Each announcement would warrant its own description.

But the bigger story becomes visible when zooming out.

This is what regular adoption looks like.

We are past the phase of ‘banks are optimistic about blockchain’ and ‘crypto could one day disrupt the financial world’.

It’s happening live as we speak, and there are more headlines every day.

A few key takeaways:

• Firstly, stablecoins are taking center stage right now.
  • Every story these days revolves around tokenized dollars and settlements, not speculative use cases.
• Second, Ethereum and Solana are becoming institutional infrastructure, not just retail trading platforms.
  • These two blockchains are the likely candidates to become the home of the “tokenize everything” craze that is just beginning.
• Third, these moves show that TradFi players are not looking for replacements, but upgrades for their existing systems.
  • Canton Network exists to allow regulated institutions to communicate online without disrupting compliance. Ubyx plugs stablecoins into existing banking systems. These are improvements.

And in the end, this all happened on the same day.

TradFi is not waiting for crypto market structure law or a bull market; they are moving now.

Crypto adoption is here.

🌎 Macrocrypto and markets

A few headlines that stood out:

• Crypto majors Dropped again yesterday as BTC lost $90k; BTC -2% at $89,900; ETH -3% at $3,100, SOL -3% at $134; XRP -7% to $2.08
• LIT (+3%), WLFI (+3%) and XMR (+3%) were the leaders
• ZEC fell 19% after the developer team resigned following a dispute with the board; the team has pledged to create a new company and continue the mission
• JPMorgan has announced plans to launch its JPM Coin on the Canton Network
• Barclays invested in Ubyx, a US stablecoin settlement startup, which powers infrastructure that allows regulated institutions to move digital money between issuers and wallets
• The Senate Banking Committee is facing mounting pressure ahead of a key vote on crypto market structure legislation next week
• Wyoming introduced its first state-issued stablecoinFrontier Stable Token, now available to the public
• Subsidiary of World Liberty Financial applied for a national charter for a trust bankwith the aim of issuing and holding its USD1 stablecoin under a federally regulated framework
• Starknet suffered an outage that lasted several hours due to a block production bug; the network was paused and rolled back before resuming
• A $12 billion crypto fraudster was arrested in Cambodia and extradited to China

In corporate bonds/ETFs

• The BTC ETFs saw $486 million in net outflows on Wednesday, now completely erasing Monday’s $700 million in net inflows over the past two sessions
• Morgan Stanley filed with the SEC for an Ethereum ETF, following previous filings for BTC and ETH ETFs

In Memes / Onchain movers

• Meme majors were very red with Doge -6%, Shiba -5%, PEPE -8%, Bonk -9%, Pengu -7%, WIF -5% and Fartcoin -10%
• White Whale market cap reaches $100 million, the first meme to reach that level since August (troll)

💰 Token, airdrop and protocol tracker

• Polymarkt announced an exclusive partnership with the WSJ and Dow Jones to provide real-time market forecast data
• Solana Mobile announced plans to send out 2 billion SKR tokens to Seeker phone owners, unlocked and scheduled for January 20
• Binance launched TradFi perps contracts with 24/7 trading and USDT pairs, starting with gold and silver
• MaanPay announced a partnership with Rumble to launch their Rumble Wallet, where Rumble streamers can now get paid in Bitcoin
• Football point Fun’s (Sports fun) FUN token was added to the Coinbase listing roadmap ahead of their upcoming TGE

🚚 What’s happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders fell again on Wednesday; Punks -1% at 29.65 ETH, Pudgy -2% at 4.9 ETH and BAYC even at 5.4 ETH; Hypurr -3% to 543 HYPE
• Memeland Captainz (+27%) top movers
• Memeland teased a new art update for Captainz, which led to the price spike