The SEC Opens Custody to Advisers, a Bridge Mints Fake Tokens, and Illinois Waits

The rule deciding where professional money is allowed to keep crypto is being redrawn, and the agency holding the pen says there is more where that came from.

Elsewhere, somebody turned a bridge into a printing press, which is worth understanding before it happens to something you own.

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Market-Moving News

Three things landed since your last edition, and not one of them is about price.

One is a regulator quietly removing the excuse that kept a lot of professional money on the sidelines. One is a reminder that bridges are still the softest thing in crypto. And one is a state tax that is now waiting in a courtroom rather than on a calendar.

Stablecoins

Tether Brings $190B USDT Back to Bitcoin With Native Swaps and Lending

Tether-backed infrastructure company Utexo plans to start issuing USDT directly on Bitcoin this month, bringing the nearly $190 billion stablecoin back to the network where it originally launched in 2014.

The rollout will use the RGB protocol and Bitcoin’s UTXO model, with infrastructure designed for private USDT transfers, direct BTC-USDT swaps, and Bitcoin-backed lending without wrapping BTC onto another blockchain.

USDT Returns With More Utility

The bigger shift is what users can do once USDT is live on Bitcoin again.

Utexo says exchanges, wallets, and payment providers can integrate the system through APIs and SDKs. The company also plans to extend support to the Lightning Network after the initial launch.

RGB keeps most transaction data away from Bitcoin’s public ledger, using the network mainly for ownership proofs. That gives the system a different privacy model from stablecoins running on account-based chains such as Ethereum.

Bitcoin Stays Native

The infrastructure is also designed to reduce the need for wrapped Bitcoin for dollar-based trading, lending, or payment services. Utexo has confirmed a commercial license to issue USDT using the Tether trademark, with the first Bitcoin issuance expected during October.

Take: Bringing USDT back to Bitcoin matters more if it reduces the need to move BTC onto other networks first. Native swaps and lending could make Bitcoin-based dollar liquidity much easier to use.

The key thing you should watch is whether exchanges and wallets actually integrate it at scale. Broad adoption would make this more than a homecoming, giving Bitcoin a larger role in stablecoin liquidity.

Tokenization

ECB Maps Three Ways to Put Central Bank Money Onchain

The European Central Bank has outlined three possible models for bringing central bank money into blockchain-based financial markets as Europe expands its tokenized-finance infrastructure.

One model would place central bank reserves directly on a programmable platform. Another would keep reserves inside the existing settlement system while connecting it to blockchain networks through an interoperability layer.

A third would allow private settlement tokens fully backed by reserves held at the central bank.

Central Bank Money Moves Closer to DLT

The goal is to keep central bank money at the core of settlement even as securities, bank deposits, and stablecoins increasingly move onto distributed-ledger networks.

Europe has already started implementing that strategy through Pontes, which launched in September and allows wholesale tokenized-asset transactions to settle in central bank money.

Europe Is Building the Settlement Layer

Pontes provides the near-term link between tokenized markets and existing Eurosystem infrastructure, while Appia explores the longer-term architecture for an integrated European tokenized financial system.

The ECB plans to develop an Appia blueprint by 2028, with the broader goal of allowing tokenized assets and money to operate across connected financial networks without losing central-bank settlement at the core.

Take: Tokenized securities become far more useful when the money settling those trades can operate on compatible infrastructure. The ECB is now working on that missing layer rather than focusing only on the assets themselves.

For you, the bigger signal is that tokenization is reaching the financial system's plumbing, not just the products on top of it.

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Security

NEAR Intents Starts Recovery After $3.8M Cross-Chain Exploit

NEAR Intents is partially restoring services after a smart-contract exploit caused roughly $3.8 million in losses and disrupted deposits and withdrawals across multiple blockchain networks.

The project traced the problem to an interaction between its Omni deposit-and-withdrawal infrastructure and the NEAR Intents smart contract. The team patched the vulnerable component and says it will fully reimburse affected users.

Cross-Chain Simplicity Meets a Security Test

NEAR Intents is designed to simplify cross-chain trading by letting users specify the outcome they want while independent solvers handle routing and execution behind the scenes.

The platform says it has already processed more than $30 billion across 35 blockchains, making the disruption more significant than the loss alone. The recovery process affected connections across 11 networks.

Services Begin Coming Back Online

NEAR Intents has started restoring operations while security teams continue tracing the stolen funds and checking the affected infrastructure.

The exploit did not compromise the underlying NEAR blockchain itself.  The failure was contained within the cross-chain system connecting users and assets across different networks.

Take: Cross-chain systems become more valuable as they hide complexity, but that same abstraction can concentrate risk in the infrastructure underneath.

You may never see the routing layer during a normal swap, yet its security still determines whether the entire experience holds together.

NEAR Intents covering user losses and restoring service help contain the damage, but the exploit shows why invisible infrastructure still deserves scrutiny.

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Future Forward

Light on macro, unusually heavy on rulebooks.

Regulation:

🏛️ UK authorisation gateway (Open now): Firms can start applying for permission under the FCA’s new cryptoasset regime. The regime itself does not switch on until late 2027, so this is the paperwork phase, and who files tells you who intends to operate there.

🏛️ South Korea seizure rules (In force): Amended civil execution rules give Korean courts a formal route to freeze and liquidate crypto for the first time, covering both exchange-held balances and self-custody wallets, where a court can order assets moved to an enforcement officer before the debtor is even served.

Crypto Conferences:

💎 TOKEN2049 Singapore (Next week): More than 25,000 attendees, with a closed institutional session of 200 individually approved participants, mostly managing director level and up, drawn from banks, asset managers, sovereign wealth funds, trading firms and regulators.

Crypto Know-How: How a Bridge Ends Up Minting Tokens Nobody Paid For

Moving a token between chains sounds like sending it somewhere. Usually it is nothing of the sort, and that gap explains most bridge disasters.

Take the common design: lock and mint. You deposit tokens into a contract on the origin chain, and they stay locked there. A message goes out confirming the deposit.

A contract on the destination chain reads that message and mints a local version in the same amount. Burn the local version and the process runs backward, releasing the originals.

So every token on the destination chain is a claim on something sitting locked elsewhere. The two sides stay honest only while whatever authorizes that minting stays honest.

Compromise it and the arithmetic breaks. If an attacker can get the destination contract to mint for a deposit that never happened, the new supply looks identical to the genuine article. Same ticker, same pools, same charts. Nothing behind it.

Which is why a common containment move is to cut the link.

Strand the counterfeit supply on the chain where it was created and shut the door to redeeming it for the real asset. The original reserve can come through intact even while the destination-chain version is wrecked.

The practical read for you is simple enough. A wrapped token carries the risk of its bridge stacked on top of the risk of the asset, and that extra layer stays invisible right up until it is not.

Everything Else

• Leadership rotates and seven stocks are already quietly positioned to lead the next market cycle before the crowd figures it out

• NEAR Intents says it has identified the attacker behind a $3.8 million exploit and given them forty-eight hours to return the funds, with cross-chain services paused meanwhile.

• 2Z releases roughly 1.66 billion tokens today, close to half of everything already circulating, and the heaviest piece of a week carrying about $174 million of new supply.

• ZRO climbed after Anchorage Digital named LayerZero its interoperability partner for stablecoin issuance, with reports also pointing to over-the-counter buying by Wintermute.

• AAVE rallied as Aave V4 landed on Base with tokenized Coinbase equities usable as collateral for USDC loans outside the US, though the same report flags exchange reserves hitting a monthly high.

• BTC dominance is closing in on 60% while USDT’s share of the market has slipped to 6.3%, with the odds of an October rate hike down sharply from around 70%.