Circle has agreed to acquire the Interop Labs team and its proprietary technology in a transaction expected to close in early 2026, while the Axelar Network, its foundation and the AXL token will remain independently governed. The acquisition will fold Interop Labs' interoperability stack into Circle's Arc blockchain and Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol to bolster crosschain infrastructure for multichain applications. The move follows Circle's earlier purchase of Hashnote and comes amid a broader wave of 2025 acquisitions by stablecoin issuers, including Paxos and Tether.

Bitget has opened a private beta that lets a group of users trade forex, gold, commodities and stock derivatives using USDt as margin and settlement. The exchange says positions are collateralized with stablecoins and remain in a restricted testing phase while it monitors performance and risk controls. As other platforms like Kraken and Bybit also add traditional assets, crypto exchanges are increasingly positioning themselves as unified venues for both digital and TradFi markets.

Tools for Humanity unveiled a major World App update on Thursday in San Francisco, adding end-to-end encrypted World Chat, DeFi yields via Morpho and QR-based payments at more than one million merchants in Argentina. The app also expanded stablecoin support to USDC and EURC and introduced USD virtual accounts in 18 countries powered by Bridge.