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As well as being issuer of the world's largest stablecoin, USDT, Tether also owns more than 10% of Juventus FC and is now looking to play a more active role in the running of the Italian soccer powerhouse.
Tether asked to participate in the club's recent capital increase and be granted a board seat in May, according to an emailed statement from the stablecoin issuer.
"While these requests were not taken up at the time, a new meeting date has since been proposed, and we are currently coordinating with stakeholders to confirm availability or suggest an alternative if needed," Tether said.
Juventus dominated Italian football throughout the 2010s winning nine consecutive Serie A titles between 2011 and 2020, but has been in a rebuilding mode since finishing between third and seventh in each of the five seasons since their last championship.
Tether increased its stake in I Bianconeri ("The White and Blacks") to over 10% in April, having bought 8.2% of the club in February. It is now Juventus' second-largest shareholder. Exor, the holding company of the Agnelli family, owns 65%.
"[Our] intention is to be a supportive and engaged partner in the club’s future," Tether said. "We recognize that significant investment will be needed to build a competitive squad, and we are prepared to contribute meaningfully to that effort."
The news of Tether's requests was previously reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday.
Nasdaq-listed Upexi (UPXI), a consumer-goods company with a crypto treasury strategy focused on Solana SOL, said on Thursday it will tokenize its SEC-registered shares on the Solana network.
The firm has tapped Opening Bell, the tokenized equity issuance platform developed by digital asset manager Superstate and initially available on Solana.
Read more: Superstate Expands Into Tokenized Equities; SOL Strategies to Be First Listing
Tokenized shares are able to trade around the clock, settle in real time and be held in crypto wallets. It's one of the latest trends within the booming tokenization sector, with firms like Kraken, Coinbase and Robinhood eyeing to take part in it.
The company also revealed that it added some 56,000 SOL to its treasury through the past month, bringing total holdings to 735,692 SOL, worth roughly $105 million.
Upexi is part of the growing cadre of publicly-traded companies that invest in cryptocurrencies, seeking to emulate the success of Michael Saylor's Strategy, the largest corporate owner of bitcoin BTC. The firm pivoted to a Solana treasury strategy in April raising $100 million in a private placement led by crypto trading giant GSR.
What do the latest crypto IPOs mean for the market? Aaron Brogan of Brogan Law breaks it down in today’s Crypto for Advisors newsletter.
Then, Jean-Marie Mognetti, CEO of CoinShares, provides insights from their latest investor insights survey about what clients are looking for from their advisors in terms of crypto support in Ask an Expert.
Please note that there will be no newsletter next week. We are taking the week off in lieu of the holidays — we wish you a happy Canada Day and Independence Day for those celebrating. We will be back on July 10th.
Cryptocurrency and the Public Markets
Cryptocurrency is typically viewed as an alternative to traditional securities markets. Lately, this trend may have reversed, as cryptocurrency is increasingly a factor in public equity markets.
Since January, there have been three major crypto IPOs:
May 14, 2025 – eToro Group Ltd., a trading platform, raised approximately $619 million in its initial offering, valuing the company at about $5.6 billion. Its market cap has since decreased slightly to $5.17 billion.
May 16, 2025 – Galaxy Digital Inc. uplisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange to Nasdaq, raising approximately $602 million in a mixed primary and secondary share sale priced at $19 per share. The deal valued the company at just over $8 billion. Its market cap has since settled at approximately $7.19 billion.
June 5, 2025 – Circle Internet Group Inc., the issuer of USDC, raised approximately $1.05 billion in its IPO, selling 34 million shares at $31 apiece. The offering initially valued the company at about $8 billion, but a sharp post-offering rally has pushed its market cap to $43.9 billion.
Each of these IPOs is remarkable, considering the extremely punitive regulatory environment of just one year ago, but Circle is in a class of its own. Circle raised the most money, and in the immediate aftermath, its stock popped by many multiples, indicating overwhelming demand. The pop was so extreme, in fact, that some felt the firm “left money on the table” and questioned the motives of the bankers involved.
In the wake of Circle’s success, a number of other cryptocurrency firms are considering public offerings. On June 6, Gemini announced that it had submitted a confidential S-1 to the SEC, and on June 10, it was reported that Bullish followed. Numerous other firms, including Kraken, BitGo and ConsenSys, have reportedly also considered public turns.
Yet, for these aspirants, the $20 billion question remains: Why has Circle exceeded expectations? Here are my three theories:
1. Public Market Comps
Circle was not the first crypto company to outperform. Most famously, Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy (d/b/a Strategy) has, in recent years, become a bitcoin holding company with a rump software business. Currently, Strategy holds 592,100 bitcoin, valued at approximately $62 billion, compared to about $460 million in annual revenue from its legacy business lines.
Strategy is a publicly traded company, allowing retail customers with brokerage accounts to purchase its stock and gain exposure to bitcoin. In theory, its market cap should be the sum of (1) the value of its bitcoin, plus (2) some de minimis premium for the rest. Generously, this might be $66 billion. But in reality, its market cap is $101 billion, prompting commentators to suggest that “the U.S. stock market will pay $2 (or more) for $1 worth of crypto.”
Circle’s business model involves buying conventional vanilla financial assets (mostly short-dated U.S. Treasury bills) and then issuing cryptocurrency — roughly the opposite of Strategy — but it may benefit from the same premium.
2. The GENIUS Act
Over the past several months, Congress has advanced the GENIUS Act, a piece of legislation intended to govern the regulatory treatment of stablecoins. This bill passed through the Senate last week and is expected to become law in the near future.
In this theory, GENIUS will bring regulatory clarity, enabling the stablecoin ecosystem to thrive. In particular, the bill includes a prohibition on yield, which will disallow stablecoin issuers from passing on the yields they earn from holding collateral to token holders. Perhaps this increases issuers’ value.
Complicating this, however, is the likelihood that the bill will bring increased competition from banks, such as JPMorgan’s recently announced tokenized deposits. Per Stablecon founder Nik Milanović, “If I were Circle, I would be concerned about bank issuers of stablecoins.”
3. Treasury Instability
Finally, there is the macro. Market factors have pushed up Treasury yields in recent months, and if this trend continues, it could be very lucrative for stablecoin issuers. Most issuer revenue comes from yields on the collateral they hold, so when those go up, the issuers benefit.
Importantly, the biggest risk these issuers face is rates returning to zero, in which case they would lose the majority of revenue and may not be solvent for long. Perhaps a rerating of the quality of U.S. sovereign debt has increased the long-term value of this class of business.
Looking Forward
Of course, Circle’s rise could be froth, too. Circle’s market cap is now more than half that of Coinbase. For 10-K enthusiasts, this is a bit puzzling, as Coinbase has a contractual right to half of Circle’s reserve revenue, as well as other business lines.
For further reading, view the coverage of the Circle IPO.
- Aaron Brogan, founder and managing partner, Brogan Law
Ask an Expert
Q. What does the survey data say?
A. The survey reflects a clear shift in investor behavior: digital assets are no longer a side conversation. They’ve entered the core of how investors think about wealth — and they’re not waiting for permission. Nearly 9 in 10 crypto holders plan to grow their allocation this year. That’s not hype, that’s commitment. However, what stood out most was the tension: investors are clearly seeking guidance, yet they don’t always trust the advice they’re being offered. We’re seeing a generation of investors who are self-directed, well-informed, and fully engaged. They’re not rejecting the role of the advisor, but they are raising the bar. They want intelligent, transparent conversations about crypto, and they expect their advisor to keep pace with them. That’s a reality the industry has to face head-on.
Q. What does this mean for advisors?
A. It’s an opportunity for advisors to strengthen client trust by expanding their expertise. Clients aren’t just asking for access to crypto — they’re asking whether their advisor actually understands it. And if 29% of them say a lack of experience or poor communication around risk would make them walk away, that’s not a marginal issue. Advisors still play an essential role, but the model has evolved. What clients want is strategic insight and transparency. They want someone who has taken the time to understand the ecosystem and can speak fluently about risk, custody, and product structure. If an advisor can do that, they’re not just protecting client capital, they’re earning long-term trust. That’s the difference between offering a product and earning a relationship.
Q. What specific type of support are clients looking for?
A. Clients are seeking guidance that strikes a balance between opportunity and caution. The most valued support isn’t about picking tokens — it’s about managing risk, navigating regulation, and accessing secure vehicles like ETFs or trusts. Over half of the investors we spoke to say that risk oversight is one of the most important roles an advisor can play in the crypto space. That’s a huge opening. Especially for younger or sub-HNW investors, crypto is where they’re building — and they need informed guidance. Advisors who step into that role thoughtfully can help shape the next phase of wealth creation.
- Jean-Marie Mognetti, CEO, CoinShares
Keep Reading
- The US Federal Housing Finance Agency is reviewing whether crypto holdings like bitcoin could be used to qualify for mortgages.
- Texas has become the first U.S. state to create a publicly funded, stand-alone bitcoin reserve.
- The U.S. Federal Reserve Board announced on June 23 that it will no longer include reputational risk in its bank examination programs, removing a barrier for banks to support crypto companies.
Avalanche AVAX broke below critical $17.45 support level amid accelerated selling pressure, dropping 3.4% over 24 hours, according to CoinDesk Research’s technical analysis model.
The move underperformed CoinDesk 20 — an index of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins, memecoins and exchange coins — which has fallen 1.6% in the same period of time.
Technical Analysis
• AVAX experienced a significant downtrend over the last 24 hours, falling from $17.82 to $17.21, representing a 3.4% decline with a total range of $0.85 (4.76%).
• Price action formed a short-term "double top" pattern near $18.02, with the subsequent rejection leading to accelerated selling on above-average volume.
• Volume spiked to 710,723 units, indicating a potentially strong bearish conviction as key support at $17.45 was breached.
• AVAX dropped from $17.33 to a low of $17.02 (-1.79%) before staging a recovery to close at $17.25.
• A V-shaped pattern formed with intense selling pressure when volume spiked to 33,423 units as price broke below the $17.20 support level.
• Buyers stepped in, pushing AVAX back above the $17.20 level with increasing volume, suggesting potential short-term stabilization.
Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy.
The cryptocurrency market is feeling the effects of broader uncertainty in equities as NEAR Protocol dropped 5.01% from $2.16 to $2.06 during the 24-hour period from June 25 to June 26.
The bearish pressure culminated in a sharp sell-off between 13:36-13:51 on June 26, when NEAR plunged to a session low of $2.05 on heavy volume exceeding 154K tokens.
Technical Analysis
- NEAR formed a clear bearish channel with resistance at $2.17-$2.19 and support at $2.09-$2.10, which was eventually broken on heavy volume exceeding 3.9M NEAR during the 12:00 hour.
- Notable volume spikes occurred during the 09:00-12:00 timeframe as selling pressure intensified, with the asset reaching its lowest point at $2.05 during the 13:00 hour.
- A potential double bottom pattern formed in the final 15 minutes of the analyzed period as buyers stepped in with increasing volume, suggesting possible short-term stabilization.
- The total price range over the 24-hour period was $0.14 (6.55%), indicating significant volatility.
CoinDesk 20 Index Whipsaws as Early Gains Evaporate
- The CD20 demonstrated significant volatility over the last 24 hours from 25 June 15:00 to 26 June 14:00, with a price range of $22.40 (1.29%).
- After reaching a peak of $1,762.50, the index retreated to $1,740.10, as early bullish momentum gave way to consistent selling pressure throughout the morning session.
- This pattern erased nearly all gains and suggests potential further downside if support at $1,740 fails to hold.
The real-world asset (RWA) tokenization market has grown by 380% in just three years, reaching $24 billion this month in a sign that traditional finance is finding benefits from embracing blockchain technology, according to a report from RedStone, Gauntlet and RWA.xyz.
"Asset tokenization has decisively transitioned from experimental pilots to scaled institutional adoption in 2024-2025," the Real-World Assets in On-chain Finance Report concluded.
Tokenization refers to representing real-world assets such as stocks and bonds as tokens that can be bought, sold and traded on blockchains, with the goal of reducing some of the costs and inefficiencies associated with legacy infrastructure.
Projections for how large this market could grow to vary wildly, but many seem to involve a number multiple that starts with a "t." McKinsey predicts it to become a $2 trillion market, while BCG estimates $16 trillion by 2030.
The report by RedStone et al cites Standard Chartered's projection of it growing to some $30 trillion by 2034.
"The RWA market's explosive growth is not just impressive number — it's evidence that traditional finance is finding genuine utility in blockchain infrastructure. From BlackRock's $2.9 billion BUIDL fund to Apollo's ACRED private credit tokenization, we're witnessing the early stages of what could be the largest capital migration in financial history," the report said.
While stablecoins, tokens pegged to the value of a traditional financial asset such as a fiat currency, are not typically regarded as RWA tokenization, the report argues that real-world assets could serve a similar role.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that stablecoins could bolster U.S. dollar supremacy, a sentiment that could equally apply to tokenized Treasuries.
"These words should be interpreted within the broader U.S.-denominated RWA category — tokenized Treasuries directly help finance government operations and manage public debt levels, while tokenized corporate bonds and private credit strengthen dollar dominance by expanding USD-denominated investment opportunities in the global digital economy," the report said.
Taurus, the Swiss crypto custody technology firm that counts Deutsche Bank among its customers, is rolling out a zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) privacy layer for stablecoins, starting with Circle’s USDC.
Taurus’s zero-knowledge carapace for stablecoins, a way of secretly sharing details about private data using mathematical proofs, was built on the privacy-centric Aztec Network. It continues work done on ZKP privacy enhancements for security tokens aimed at banks and financial institutions, released by Taurus earlier this year.
Unlike everyday stablecoin transactions, the application of ZKP tech means balances and transfers are encrypted and only readable by authorized parties such as issuers and regulators. This prevents unauthorized parties from monitoring wallets, reverse-engineering investment strategies, or physically targeting high-value users, according to a press release on Thursday.
Stablecoins are one of the hottest areas within crypto right now. A landmark bill establishing a legal framework for the issuance and oversight of stablecoins was recently passed by the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, stablecoin supply has surged past $250 billion, a 1200% growth since 2020.
The ZKP technology, which is open source, brings on-chain privacy to both the cash-leg and the security-leg of digital transactions, Taurus said.
“We showed that it’s possible to protect the privacy and security of stablecoin users while retaining the features of industry-standard stablecoins,” said Jean-Philippe Aumasson, chief security officer at Taurus in a statement. “This addresses concerns that we’ve repeatedly heard from banks looking at issuing stablecoins, central banks, and regulators.”
Read more: Crypto Custodian Taurus Expands Footprint to Turkey Through BankPozitif Collaboration
Stablecoins now account for most illicit on-chain activity, according to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Mass adoption of stablecoins will amplify illicit finance risks, particularly when it is handled unevenly across difference jurisdictions, the FATF said in a new report about anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT).
The FATF estimated there was approximately $51 billion in illicit on-chain activity relating to fraud and scams in 2024.
Stablecoins, tokens pegged to the value of a traditional financial asset such as a fiat currency, have been enjoying some tailwinds in recent months thanks to progress toward regulation of the sector in the U.S., amongst other places.
The total market cap of all stablecoins surpassed $250 billion for the first time earlier this month.
The FATF highlighted the importance of "travel rule" compliance in curbing money laundering and terrorist financing. The travel rule is a set of requirements on the sharing of information about the originator and beneficiary of cross-border payments.
Noting that 99 jurisdictions have passed legislation implementing the travel rule or are in the process of doing so, the FATF noted that they nevertheless experience difficulties in identifying natural or legal persons that conduct virtual asset service provider (VASP) activities.
Crypto AML specialist Notabene said it expected almost all cryptocurrency firms to be compliant with the travel rule in a report published in April. Notabene had surveyed 91 VASPs, with 90% saying they expect to be fully compliant my midyear and all saying they expected to be so by the end of the year.
Read more: Fewer Than 30% of Jurisdictions Globally Have Started Regulating Crypto: FATF Chief
To many of us in and around crypto, this time feels different. Tokenization of financial assets has arrived in ways that we haven’t previously seen.
As we charge ahead, it’s important to zoom out, slow down—something our industry is not known for—and take a snapshot of today and where we are going tomorrow.
Stablecoins Are Tokenization’s First Smash Hit
While tokenization is revolutionary for financial markets, its adoption to date has been evolutionary. First, we had stablecoins as a more efficient means of payment. Then we had tokenized money market funds as a more efficient store of value.
What’s next? Structured credit coupled with private funds. As with previous technological waves of adoption, tokenization will come slowly and then all at once. Buckle up: we are about to enter the vertical slope of the S-curve.
Since the last crypto market cycle in 2021, stablecoins have demonstrated clear product-market fit. With more than $250 billion in circulating supply, stablecoins continue to demonstrate long-term demand and utility. That includes Tether and USDC for cross-border payments through companies such as MoneyGram, Stripe, PayPal, and Felix; overseas dollar access in emerging economies and those with weaker currency regimes such as Nigeria, Venezuela, Turkey, and others; and as the key trading pairs for crypto trades including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Regulatory clarity, particularly passage of the GENIUS Act in the U.S. covering stablecoins, can only accelerate this trend. The outsized demand for Circle’s stock following its IPO is another positive sign.
Tokenized money market funds bring a technological and financial upgrade for storage of value on-chain. Market leaders including BUIDL, BENJI, ONDO, and others have shown there is clear demand for the risk-free rate onchain.
That means not only as a collateral and treasury instrument, but also as a stablecoin substitute for crypto-native players that need fiat-denominated liquidity. While the initial versions offer hybrid structures with the fund tokens mirroring traditional transfer agents and off-chain shares, we are beginning to see token-native issuances percolate across the industry.
What’s Next for Tokenization?
Given that tokenization has demonstrated a more efficient method to move and store value, what parts of the industry are next? To start, we have seen industry leaders tokenize private funds—such as Apollo’s ACRED, Hamilton Lane’s tokenized fund with Republic, multiple on-chain funds offered by WisdomTree, and others—that have begun to show utility through transparency, DeFi lending, and liquidity improvements.
The value that tokenization is bringing today to different fund structures only scratches the surface of what is possible, but as DeFi and TradFi overlap more and more, utility is likely to take off.
Structured credit is an ideal candidate for tokenization. Traditionally, it can be complex, opaque, involve multiple counterparties, and can be comparatively expensive to issue and operate. Smart contracts not only streamline and automate debt servicing of a loan pool, for example, but also follow a preprogrammed waterfall for each investor tranche.
Couple that with instant settlement within the structure and the cost basis can drop substantially. And, because the structure is on-chain, we won’t have the lack of transparency that plagued the financial system in 2008. At the issuer’s discretion, holders of on-chain structured credit products could see the performance of the underlying in real time, 24/7.
This transparency is not only transformative for regulators to better monitor underlying risks, but it also increases collateral acceptance by standardizing and providing more information to lenders.
This combination of value and information will mean a more liquid secondary market for these assets as well. While larger traditional institutions can offer some of these benefits—such as transparency or their own secondary marketplaces—tokenization has the potential to bring this all together and standardize it beyond today’s walled gardens.
Tokenizing Equities
Discussion around tokenizing equities has taken off in 2025. Though companies, including INX and Backed, have tokenized stocks before, regulatory discussions with Security and Exchange Commission’s Crypto Task Force have hastened the adoption timeline. Superstate, Kraken, and we at Galaxy have all announced stock tokenization initiatives to continue to push the industry forward.
While the industry has made progress, several challenges lie ahead. The US still lacks the stablecoin and market infrastructure bills that are needed—though the GENIUS’s passage in the Senate is a notable step forward. Solving KYC/AML remains a barrier holding the technology back from adoption at scale; private chains are too limiting and public chain structures without adequate KYC/AML are challenging for TradFi to adopt.
Instead, the industry will have to land in the middle, leveraging the benefits of public chains with the regulatory and trust-based KYC policies that our financial system is built on today.
Education on the technology’s potential also remains a hurdle. The industry must continue to highlight material use cases and tangible benefits that tokenization can bring not just to traditional finance but entirely new opportunities and structures that couldn’t exist before.
Takeaways
What should we take away from this time?
First, we have come a long way from the initial bitcoin transactions and ethereum smart contracts that formed a cornerstone of crypto; now, the industry has partnerships with the biggest names in finance, payments, and technology that lead the global economy today.
Second, we are at the bottom of the second inning—we’ve put some points on the board, but this is just the start. Adoption at scale will require a pairing of the revolutionary benefits of this technology with the timeless trust that has been the bedrock of the financial industry since its founding.
This balance of technology and trust is core to achieving the potential of tokenization in finance: to do for value what the internet did for information.
CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.
The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 2982.19, down 0.6% (-17.53) since 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
Three of 20 assets are trading higher.
Leaders: BCH (+2.7%) and ETH (+0.5%).
Laggards: SUI (-4.6%) and HBAR (-3.5%).
The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.