🏦 Circle's Bank Application and S&P 500 Going Onchain

Your First Captivating Topic of the Week

🏦 Circle’s “Trust Fall” into Banking

Circle just filed for a national trust bank charter with the OCC. If approved, “First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A.” would sit between a full-service depository and a state-by-state money transmitter, letting Circle custody USDC reserves under one federal umbrella (currently at BNY Mellon). National trusts can’t make loans or take retail deposits, but they do enjoy coast-to-coast pre-emption and OCC supervision, something that Anchorage first pinned on in 2021.

Why now? Two forces are converging:

• The GENIUS Act: fresh out of the Senate, this bill would treat stablecoin issuers like banks, obliging full-reserve, high-quality assets. Circle is reading the room and choosing to look like the safest kid in class before the bell rings.

• Market Optics: USDC’s float remains dwarfed by Tether’s, Circle is increasingly seen as the compliant onramp. A federal charter could seal that perception and even tee up further growth.

Crypto wanted to unseat banks and now its most important stablecoins is turning into one, at least structurally. If the OCC signs off, expect two ripple effects: a flurry of copy cat applications and fresh pressure on lawmakers to harmonize federal vs. state stablecoin oversight. The open question: does institutional confidence trump decentralization purists’ fear of bank-grade gatekeeping? Your move, OCC.

This is not financial advice.

TokenizeThis Report

It was great having hundreds of people in the RWA space join us at TokenizeThis 2025 earlier this year! After listening to hours worth of 50+ speakers’ insights, we’ve put together a report to summarize it all up for you.

We cover the key takeaways from each of the sessions throughout the conference, including some key quotes and themes. TokenizeThis covered topics ranging from yieldcoins & DeFi vaults for RWAs to institutional infrastructure & onchain lending. Give it a read and share your thoughts on social media - don’t forget to tag us (@Markets_Onchain on X, STM.co on LinkedIn)!

Want to watch the panels, fireside chats, and keynotes?
Find all the recordings on our YouTube!

Monday’s Onchain: Weekly X Spaces

 Join us on Monday’s Onchain to talk about
📰 Tokenization News
🚀 New RWAs
⭐️ Featured Guests and more!

Set your reminder and see you there!

Your Second Captivating Topic of the Week

🚀 The S&P 500 Is Going Onchain with Centrifuge

Centrifuge just teamed up with S&P Dow Jones Indices to pipe the S&P 500’s official files straight into smart contracts, creating an on-chain “proof-of-index” feed that sets the stage for the first tokenized S&P 500 fund. This is set to be run by Anemoy and sub-advised by Janus Henderson. In one stroke, Wall Street’s most tracked benchmark is being re-packaged as programmable collateral that can settle, rebalance, or even serve as DAO-ready treasury backing 24/7.

Why it matters:

• Evolving RWAs: Tokenized T-bill funds proved the plumbing works; moving an equity megabenchmark tests whether DeFi can handle the $1 trillion-a-day ecosystem of ETFs, futures, and structured notes that orbit the S&P 500.

• License to innovate: It’s one of the first times S&P DJI has licensed index IP directly to an onchain infra provider, a green light other issuers (think MSCI or FTSE) may now chase.

• Rewriting the ETF playbook: If investors can mint, trade, and margin a basket of 500 stocks without the traditional fund wrapper, BlackRock and Vanguard suddenly have a very digital competitor.

Want more insights on onchain indices and ETFs? Check out this session from TokenizeThis featuring Cameron Drinkwater from S&P Dow Jones Indices who’s also involved in this initiative.

This is not financial advice.

Companies of the Week

Company of the Week - Herwig: Dinari
Company of the Week - Kyle: Davis Commodities

Find out why and more every Friday live around 12pm EST on LinkedIn or X/ Twitter. Past episodes available on Youtube or your favorite podcast platform! 

RWA Foundation & WALLY DAO

Check out this new ad for RWAs created by STM in-house using AI and a weekend of messing around. The WALLY DAO website is officially live! Check it out at WALLYDAO.xyz

Reports

RWA Tokenization: Key Trends and 2025 Market Outlook

Check out a report we contributed to: RWA Tokenization: Key Trends and 2025 Market Outlook. Led by Brickken, this report brings multiple parties together in diving into tokenization, with STM.co supporting with both data and some of the written sections.

What’s Inside?

✅ A Breakdown of Tokenization and Related Benefits
✅ Key advantages for issuers, investors, and institutions
✅ How the market is evolving and trends shaping adoption in 2025
✅ What’s next? Expert insights on regulation, DeFi integration, institutional involvement, and market growth

STM’s RWA Market Prediction for 2030

STM.co is proud to release a thorough report on our prediction on the tokenized real world asset market growth. This report explores the variety of opportunities within each asset class to capture value on-chain.

Tokenization can be applied to just about any object and asset type. Art, carbon credits, life insurance, and other sub $5 trillion asset classes weren’t even considered in estimates.

In order for STM.co to derive its 2030 market predictions, the following asset classes were evaluated: currency, M2/M3, real estate, commodities, public equities, private companies and funds, bonds, credit and lending markets.

This is not financial or investment advice.