Mastercard Closes BVNK Acquisition

Ethereum Weighs Cap on Staking Yield | BitGo Ditches LayerZero for CCIP

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
August 05, 2026

📢Sponsor | 💡Telegram | 📰Past Editions

Good Morning.

Mastercard's completed BVNK acquisition reveals a payments incumbent moving past partnership and pilot programs into direct ownership of stablecoin rails, a bet that controlling settlement infrastructure will matter more than staying agnostic as fintechs and enterprises pick sides in the onchain payments race.

Check out our latest podcast episode!

In Today's Email:

What Matters: Mastercard Closes BVNK Acquisition 👀
Case Study: BitGo Ditches LayerZero for CCIP 🔎
Governance & Features: Ethereum Weighs Cap on Staking Yield 🔷

You read and share. We listen and improve. Send us feedback at marco@launchy.app.

Narratives: Payments Vertical Integration

For daily market updates and airdrop alphas, check out our telegram!

TOGETHER WITH

Arbital: Institutional Market Making, For Everyone

Automate your perp DEX market making.

Arbital helps you run passive market making strategies across Hyperliquid, Pacifica, Extended, Decibel, Hotstuff, GRVT, and HIP-3 markets - generating volume, and farming points.

Start running your automated strategies today

WHAT MATTERS

Mastercard Closes BVNK Acquisition

State of play: Mastercard's completed acquisition of BVNK signals the card network is racing to own stablecoin settlement infrastructure before rivals lock in the fintechs and enterprises now building on public blockchains.

Mastercard finalized the deal after agreeing in March to pay up to $1.8B for BVNK, though final terms were undisclosed.
BVNK's blockchain payments infrastructure will help financial institutions and enterprises scale stablecoin and tokenized asset use cases.
BVNK said its existing operations and clients remain unaffected, with Mastercard capabilities like card functionality now layering on top.
The acquisition follows Mastercard's June expansion of stablecoin settlement to include USDC, PYUSD, and RLUSD across its network.
It also builds on Mastercard's March crypto partner program spanning more than 85 crypto native companies.

Why it matters: Mastercard is internalizing stablecoin infrastructure rather than partnering for it, betting that owning the rails matters more than staying neutral across chains.

Our take: A $1.8B price tag for a three year old startup shows incumbents now view stablecoin infrastructure as existential, not experimental, and are willing to overpay to avoid being disintermediated.

For builders and investors: Expect BVNK's multi chain rails to become the default path for enterprises settling in USDC, PYUSD, and RLUSD through Mastercard, raising the bar for independent stablecoin infrastructure providers competing for the same clients.

CASE STUDY

BitGo Ditches LayerZero for CCIP

BitGo's migration of $7.4B in WBTC to Chainlink CCIP marks the largest defection yet in a security driven exodus away from LayerZero, pushing total migrated value to nearly $15B.

WBTC, the largest wrapped bitcoin with about 45% market share, becomes CCIP's default for all future BitGo issued assets.
The move follows the $292M KelpDAO exploit, which exposed risks in LayerZero's configurable verifier model.
Dune data found 47% of LayerZero OApp contracts used a single verifier setup similar to the one exploited.
Chainlink cites its 16 operator minimum and SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certifications as differentiators from LayerZero.
BitGo retains full ownership of WBTC's token contracts throughout the switch.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 500 crypto VC individuals 👇

INSIGHTS

DEXs Hit Record Share of Spot Trading

State of play: Decentralized exchanges are capturing a record share of spot trading not because DeFi is winning users, but because centralized exchanges are losing them, with CEX spot volume cratering to a 12 month low.

The DEX to CEX ratio closed the month at an all time high of 24%, up from 17% a year earlier.
Spot exchange volume is on track for a 12 month low of $670M, down from its annual high of $2.23T.
Coinbase and Gemini have cut staff as centralized spot volumes dried up alongside broader waning crypto interest.
Prediction markets have also cannibalized some spot volume that previously flowed through exchanges.
Deeper aggregator liquidity and faster cross chain swap routing have closed most of the execution gap that once favored CEXs.

FEATURES & GOVERNANCE UPDATE

Ethereum Weighs Cap on Staking Yield

A new EIP proposal would burn a rising share of validator rewards as ETH staking climbs toward 50%, forcing consensus layer issuance to zero at that threshold in a bid to stop overconcentration among large custodians.

The Tapered Issuance Burn sets a saturation balance near 60.25M ETH, roughly half current supply, where the burn fraction hits 100%.
Authors argue current issuance rewards staking indefinitely, pushing concentration toward custodians and diluting non staking holders.
Rewards would taper gradually over 18 months to soften the transition rather than cutting yield abruptly.
Aave Labs CEO Stani Kulechov warned the plan could kill ETH borrowing and yield use cases in DeFi.
Grayscale's Zach Pandl called reduced inflation a first order positive for ETH price given its low yield relative to volatility.

Other notable feature updates:

Uniswap launched Earn.
Apyx snapshot set for October 11.
Jupiter launches Spot V2 on Solana.
Reya removes platform deposit fees.
Cap opens Homestead stabledrop claims.
Reflect launched a universal tranching layer on Solana.
Uniswap activated its fee switch across all V4 pools and top Robinhood pools.

QUICK BITES

Robinhood shrugs off crypto slump.
BitGo moves $7.4B Wrapped Bitcoins to Chainlink CCIP.
Bitcoin losses from Coldcard hack could swell to $130M.
Senators seek SEC probe of President Trump's memecoin.
DEXs capture record 24% of spot crypto trading as CEX volumes sink.
BlackRock’s spot Ethereum ETF to undergo 1-for-3 reverse share split.
BlackRock debuts tokenized share classes for select $311B EU MM funds.
Mastercard completes BVNK acquisition to expand stablecoin payments infra.
Senators make a renewed push to add prediction markets provision to CLARITY.
Ethereum researchers propose burning validator rewards to cap staking at 50%.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

Anastasiia’s read on An open book on USDe risk.
Paymentscan’s read on Who Banks the Neobanks?
Jeff Amico’s read on How most "RWA credit vaults" work today.

— (@)

If you enjoy reading this issue, please consider subscribing. It takes 1 minute of your time, but it would mean the world to us 🙇

Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.