SamThatsWell✨👑| OrbitX

🗞️ LAST 24 HOURS IN STABLECOINS [11 NOV 2026] Big banks put real money behind their own coin, while payment firms wired stablecoins into tools businesses already use. Covering 10 to 11 Nov. 📉 Total stablecoin supply was about $291.1B on 11 Nov per DefiLlama, down about $1.0B in a day and $4.7B in a week. USDT is near $175.7B and USDC near $70.1B, both still slipping. 🏦 Goldman Sachs, Citi, Santander, Deutsche Bank and others have committed about $270M to Project Faro, their joint stablecoin venture, to cover five years of running costs, Bloomberg reported. A US-incorporated dollar coin comes first, targeted for H1 2027, then a euro coin. 💳 Visa added Monad as a stablecoin settlement option for issuers and acquirers. Visa's settlement run rate was about $20B a year in September, over 15x a year earlier, with 225+ stablecoin-linked card programmes live. 🛒 Anchorage Digital, a federally chartered crypto bank, now mints, redeems and holds stablecoins for Lydian, which lets merchants accept stablecoins at checkout and receive local currency like a card payment. 🏢 Bottomline completed its first cross-border USDC payments inside its Global Payments Hub, an intra-company transfer run through the same approvals and audit trail as bank payments. 🇬🇧 UK ministers moved amendments in the Lords on 10 Nov that keep UK-issued qualifying stablecoins used in payments out of crypto dealing and safeguarding rules, while lending stays regulated. The full regime starts in October 2027. 🇯🇵 Digital Garage signed an MoU with Circle, and its stablecoin payment platform now supports Circle's Arc chain for USDC payments in stores and online. JCB is its first launch partner. 🇷🇼 Circle and Global Citizen will bring USDC payments to vendors and crews at Move Afrika concerts, starting in Rwanda in 2027, with financial skills training. 🇰🇷 South Korea's FSS said stablecoins used for payments will have to fall under the Electronic Financial Transactions Act, with licences for firms that receive, hold and transfer them. Interbank coins like JPM Coin need not follow the same rules. 🇸🇬 At Singapore FinTech Festival, Paxos's APAC head said stablecoin enquiries now come mostly from treasury teams, and the main gain is speed, not cost. 🇪🇺 Paris fintech NGPES raised a $5M seed to launch a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin for B2B payments, and bought Lugh, a licensed crypto firm formerly owned by Casino Group. 🌎 Ripio has begun issuing stablecoins tied to six LatAm currencies (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Chile and Peru), its CEO said on 9 Nov. Argentines are buying its Brazilian real coin for carry trades. My take: Banks are spending $270M to mint their own dollar, but the more useful news was quieter: USDC inside Bottomline, merchants paid in local currency through Lydian, and pesos and reais going on-chain through Ripio. In emerging markets, the winner is whoever owns the last mile into a local account, not whoever mints the coin. Follow @harshamv for the Last 24 hours in Stablecoins, every day.

The best-selling phone brand in Africa was built around a selfie problem. Samsung and Nokia had the famous brands. A Chinese company almost unknown at home took the market. Here's how listening beat branding. Transsion is based in Shenzhen. It started selling phones in Nigeria in the mid-2000s, under the name Tecno. At the time, Nokia and Samsung owned the African phone market. Transsion did not try to out-advertise them. It studied how people actually used their phones. ↳ People carried two SIM cards to avoid network fees and patchy coverage, but few could afford two phones. Transsion sold dual-SIM phones in 2008, two years before Nokia did. ↳ Power cuts were common, so batteries had to last. ↳ And the front camera was the first thing many buyers checked in the shop. Most phone cameras were tuned on lighter skin. On darker skin, especially in low light, faces came out dark and unclear. Transsion analysed several million photos of dark-skinned Africans. Its cameras find the face using the eyes and teeth, then add the right amount of exposure. The result: In 2017, Transsion overtook Samsung as Africa's number one phone supplier. In 2024, it held 49% of Africa's smartphone market and became the world's fourth largest smartphone seller, shipping 106.7 million units. Here's my read: Transsion did not win with a better spec sheet. It won by treating a problem every global brand ignored as the main feature. In a new market, the gap your competitors cannot see is often the whole strategy. 1. Watch the shop counter, not the spec sheet. What buyers check first tells you what they value. For Transsion's buyers, it was the selfie camera. 2. Local problems are product requirements. Two SIMs, weak power, low light. None of these were edge cases there. They were daily life. 3. Usefulness builds the brand. Nokia had decades of trust in Africa. It lost to a brand that solved daily problems better. The short version: global brands assume the product travels. The winners rebuild it around the people using it. This is how we try to think at OrbitX. What works for us in Dubai does not get copied into Nigeria. ↳ In Nigeria, we lead with receiving money from abroad: US clients and family overseas send to a USD account as a local transfer, and the money is then withdrawn into a local NGN account. ↳ We are working on mobile payments next, because that is how people there want to pay. We build for how the market moves money, not how we wish it did. What is one local problem in your market that global brands still treat as an edge case? #GlobalExpansion #Africa #Fintech

Last 24 hours in Stablecoins | 10 Nov 2026 Banks moved first this Monday, while the rulebooks got stricter from Ottawa to Lagos. Covering 9 to 10 Nov. 📉 Total stablecoin supply was about $292.0B on 10 Nov per DefiLlama, down about $1.0B in a day and about $5.7B since 2 Nov. USDT stood near $176.2B and USDC near $70.3B, both down about 1.3% over 7 days. Why it matters: the slide is now into a second straight week, so growth has to come from usage. 🏦 PNC Bank opened incoming USDC payments on Ethereum for its corporate and institutional clients, powered by Coinbase, with funds converted 1:1 to dollars into a PNC deposit account. It starts as a limited pilot. Why it matters: a top US bank now lets businesses get paid in stablecoins without ever holding them. 🇦🇪 Liv, the digital bank of Emirates NBD, is adding USDU, the first USD stablecoin registered by the UAE central bank, with Aquanow as the infrastructure partner and 90 days of zero-fee crypto trading. Why it matters: Gulf retail customers can now hold a regulated digital dollar inside a bank app they already use. 🇨🇦 Canada's budget would bar banks from issuing stablecoins directly and push them into separate subsidiaries registered with the Bank of Canada. The tokens get no deposit insurance, and the framework is expected next autumn. Why it matters: Canada is keeping bank deposits and bank-issued coins legally apart. 🇳🇿 New Zealand's FMA proposed that NZD payment stablecoins backed by money at a registered bank and redeemable at face value stop being treated as financial products. Why it matters: smaller economies are clearing a path for local payment coins instead of waiting for a full law. 🇳🇬 More from Nigeria's new rules: cross-border stablecoin payments now fall under FX rules, P2P transfers must be tied to a BVN, and anonymous intermediary accounts are banned. A coin becomes systemically important above ₦500bn for 30 days or 5M Nigerian users, and existing operators have 180 days to apply. Why it matters: the informal USDT corridor is being pulled into the formal FX system. 🇺🇸 Elizabeth Warren will chair the Senate Banking Committee from January and has promised scrutiny of Trump family crypto ventures. Senator Blumenthal has given Tether and Binance until 4 Jan to hand over records. Why it matters: the issuers face a tougher Washington just as GENIUS rules start to bite. 🏛️ Coinbase's OCC national trust charter became final, starting with custody and laying the base for payments. It takes no retail deposits, and community bankers are suing the OCC over such charters. Why it matters: crypto firms are getting federal licences while banks fight it in court. ⚡ USDC's velocity rose to about 80 times a month from 45, while USDT stayed near 7 because it mostly sits as savings in emerging markets, CoinDesk reported. Circle Payments Network passed a $58B annualised rate by 30 Oct. Why it matters: one coin is spent, the other is saved, and products should be built for each. 💰 HIFI raised a $37M Series A led by Left Lane Capital. It handles about $7B in annualised volume and lets customers convert USDC and send it to Visa cards worldwide via Visa Direct. Why it matters: investors are paying for the plumbing between stablecoins and card and bank rails. 🌏 UK-based Seva Money raised a $5M seed to give remittance companies white-label wallets and cards for recipients. It is live in India and Mexico, with the Philippines, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Ghana planned in 12 months. Why it matters: the next fight in remittances is the receiving side, not the send. 🔒 Raycash, spun out of Zama, opened a private beta on Ethereum where USDC balances and payment amounts stay encrypted, with over 75,000 people on its waitlist. Why it matters: public balances are a real blocker for salaries and business payments on-chain. My take: The headline today is banks, but the real story is where the money sits. Businesses want to get paid in stablecoins and keep dollars, while families in emerging markets hold USDT as savings and rarely spend it. Rules in Lagos and Ottawa are forcing both into licensed pipes, so builders who own the receiving side, with local cash-out and FX, will matter most. Follow @harshamv for the Last 24 hours in Stablecoins, every day.

Last 24 hours in Stablecoins | 8 Nov 2026 A quiet Sunday after a week of new rules. Covering 5 to 8 Nov, and skipping stories we already ran. 📉 Total stablecoin supply was about $290.2B on 8 Nov per DefiLlama, down 2.01% over 7 days and 4.62% over 30 days, with a slight 0.02% rise in the last day. Why it matters: the long slide paused for a day, but the weekly picture is still a shrinking pile of digital dollars. 💵 Tether stood near $176.8B, down about 1.6% over 7 days, and USDC near $70.7B, down about 1.7%. Both stayed within a sliver of $1. Why it matters: the two giants are still being redeemed at par, so this is money leaving, not a broken peg. 📉 World Liberty's USD1 fell about 11% over 7 days and about 20% over 30 days, to about $3.46B. BlackRock's BUIDL dropped about 12% in a week and 20% in a month, to about $1.76B, and Sky's USDS fell about 13% and 18% to about $5.59B. Why it matters: the contraction is no longer just Tether and Circle; several large coins are shrinking faster than the market. 📈 Ethena's USDe rose about 9.4% over 7 days to about $4.92B, and Ripple USD rose about 11% to about $2.69B. Why it matters: in a shrinking market, the coins tied to yield or a payments network are still pulling in dollars. 📈 Open USD reached about $911M, up about 15% over 30 days and about 2% over 7 days. Why it matters: the card-network coin is still compounding while most of the market is not. 💶 Circle's euro coin, EURC, stood near $517M, up about 2.5% over 7 days and about 6.7% over 30 days. Why it matters: even a small euro token is growing while the dollar pile contracts. 🔗 Stablecoins on the XRP Ledger rose about 22% over 7 days to about $976M, with Ripple USD making up about 91% of that. Why it matters: RLUSD's weekly gain is showing up as chain-level dollar flow, not just a headline mint. 🔗 Circle's Arc chain held about $1.29B of stablecoins, up about 18% over 7 days, almost all of it USDC. Why it matters: new dollar activity is concentrating on rails built for payments, even as overall supply falls. 📱 At a Seoul policy seminar on 5 Nov, Samsung Global Research's Park Hyun-soo said a won stablecoin could eventually sit in Samsung Wallet if one is issued, with no issuer or date named. Korea's tokenised-securities rules are due on 4 Feb 2027; on-chain stablecoin payments wait for later legislation. Why it matters: the world's biggest phone wallet is ready to distribute a local coin, but Seoul has not written the payments rules yet. 📄 Apple and Meta were among the latest firms to block OKX and Intercontinental Exchange from offering tokenised versions of their shares on OKXICE, a planned 24/7 venue that would settle trades in stablecoins. About 90% of the 62 companies first picked have objected, leaving a short list that includes Coinbase, Circle, Strategy and Robinhood. Why it matters: a stablecoin settlement venue is only as useful as the assets issuers will allow onto it. 💳 Gnosis Pay said it found unauthorised access on 3 Nov to the system behind its own branded Visa cards, which let customers spend stablecoins. A user said the leaked data included his name, home address, card number and every linked wallet. Funds were not touched, the white-label partner platform was not affected, and the consumer cards were already set to retire on 20 Dec. Why it matters: the link between a home address and a wallet is now a live risk for anyone building a spend product. My take: The digital-dollar pile is still shrinking, and the coins that grew this week are the ones attached to a payments rail or a yield. That is the split that matters for emerging market corridors: distribution and usefulness, not another mint. The Gnosis Pay leak is a reminder that a spend app also holds the map from a person's house to their wallets. If you cannot keep that map safe, the card is not a product people will trust with their salary. Follow @harshamv for the Last 24 hours in Stablecoins, every day.

Last 24 hours in Stablecoins | 9 Nov 2026 A weekend where usage kept growing while the pile kept shrinking. Covering 7 to 9 Nov. 📉 Total stablecoin supply was about $293.0B on 9 Nov per DefiLlama. In the seven days to 7 Nov it fell $6.66B, the steepest weekly drop of 2026 and the deepest since Terra's collapse in May 2022, after ten straight down days. Why it matters: the slide is now the longest of the year, so any growth has to come from usage, not fresh money. 💸 Allium data shows stablecoin supply grew just 0.4% to $305B in the first nine months of 2026, while payments rose 45% to $482B and transactions 71% to 1.04B. Payments were only about 0.5% of $97.9T in raw transfers. Why it matters: the same dollars are moving more often, and real payments are still a thin slice of on-chain volume. 🇰🇷 Korea's FSC is in final talks on the Digital Asset Basic Act and plans to introduce it this month. Won stablecoins are expected to be issued by bank-led consortiums, as the Bank of Korea wanted, with exchange stake caps of 15% to 20% and about a three-year grace period. Why it matters: Korea is choosing banks, not tech firms, as the gatekeepers of a local coin. 🌏 At a Seoul forum on 9 Nov, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said USDT will not replace won payments and pitched it as a connector for Korean exporters. He cited 730M USDT users, about 30M new each quarter, and a Hyundai pilot that moved $20,000 from its US unit to Mexico in under 7 minutes versus 3 to 4 hours by bank. Why it matters: the biggest issuer is selling trade settlement, not consumer wallets, to export economies. 🇳🇬 The fine print of Nigeria's new rules: dollar coins can only be offered to Nigerians through a locally incorporated, CBN-licensed issuer, and foreign licences do not count. At least 40% of reserves must be cash or highly liquid assets, redemptions are due by the next business day, and algorithmic coins are banned. Why it matters: global issuers now need a Nigerian entity to serve one of the world's biggest crypto markets. 🔄 Mastercard-owned BVNK opened direct minting and redemption of Open USD at 1:1 for eligible businesses outside the EEA, on Ethereum, Solana, Base and Tempo. Why it matters: businesses and market makers now have a direct door in and out of the card-network coin. 🇿🇦 Kredete completed an all-share purchase of a company holding an FSCA crypto licence in South Africa, adding to its licences in Argentina and Ghana. It reports 6.5M users and over $18B in annualised volume. Why it matters: diaspora payment apps are buying licences market by market instead of routing around rules. 💳 Hong Kong's OSL Group and card issuer Reap agreed to work together on stablecoin cards, corporate payments and expense management. OSL runs the USDGO enterprise dollar coin, about $1.14B on DefiLlama and down about 10% this week. Why it matters: Asian issuers are pairing a coin with a card programme to give it daily use. 🇦🇪 The UAE central bank and Singapore's MAS plan to widen their partnership into central bank digital currencies and cross-border QR payments. UAE and Singapore non-oil trade hit $6.54B in 2025, up 25.3%. Why it matters: Gulf to Asia corridors are being wired at the central bank level, alongside private stablecoins. 🪙 USDC Treasury minted another 250M USDC on Solana on 9 Nov, per Whale Alert. Why it matters: even in a shrinking market, fresh dollars keep flowing to the chains used for payments. 📉 Global Dollar (USDG) fell about 5.5% over 7 days and 11% over 30 days to about $2.71B, and PayPal USD slipped about 2.7% to $2.74B. Why it matters: fintech-backed coins are shrinking with the market, not against it. My take: Seoul and Lagos sent the same message this weekend: if you want to serve our people, be local and licensed. Tether is pitching USDT as a trade connector while Nigeria asks for a local issuer, and those two views will meet in every emerging corridor. The builders who win will be the ones who hold the licences and the payment flows, because supply is flat and usage is where the growth is. Follow @harshamv for the Last 24 hours in Stablecoins, every day.