[News Brief] Jul 11, morning | Circle receives approval to operate a federally regulated trust bank in the U.S.

Watcher.Guru reported that Circle, the issuer of USDC, has received approval to operate as a federally regulated trust bank in the United States.

The approval comes as regulatory frameworks for stablecoin issuers continue to take shape. Through this, Circle has established a foundation to expand its institutional financial infrastructure and custody services.

A Coinbase vice chairman said that the CLARITY Act, a U.S. crypto regulation bill, has bipartisan support from both Democrats and Republicans.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, he said, “Democratic and Republican senators are continuing discussions to finalize the bill.”

The CLARITY Act is legislation designed to clarify the market structure and supervisory authority for digital assets in the United States.

According to source @pete_rizzo_, a full ban on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) has been enacted into law in the United States, prohibiting the Federal Reserve from issuing a digital dollar.

The post said the U.S. has become the first major economy to ban CBDCs, describing the move as a measure to protect civil rights and privacy.

Circle minted an additional 500 million USDC on the Solana chain.

According to Odaily, on-chain monitoring by Onchain Lens showed that Circle minted 500 million USDC on Solana about six hours earlier. As of 2026, the cumulative USDC issuance on the Solana chain stands at 67.51 billion.

U.S. spot SOL ETFs recorded net inflows of $150,500 on July 10, U.S. Eastern Time.

According to SoSoValue, the inflow came solely from the 21Shares Solana ETF, whose cumulative net outflow stands at $102 million.

As of the time of reporting, total net assets of U.S. spot SOL ETFs were $901 million, the SOL net asset ratio was 1.99%, and cumulative net inflows totaled $1.136 billion.

Hong Kong-listed Boyaa Interactive purchased an additional 108 BTC as a treasury asset.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, the purchase brings Boyaa Interactive’s total Bitcoin holdings to 4,201 BTC. It is drawing attention as another example of listed companies increasing their Bitcoin treasury allocations.

Source: Bitcoin Magazine

Japan-listed Metaplanet has begun reviewing a Bitcoin-collateralized digital credit product.

According to Wu Blockchain, Metaplanet said it is studying the feasibility of issuing a product that combines BTC collateral, stablecoins, and tokenization infrastructure together with JPYC, Progmat, and its securities subsidiary.

The concept aims for 24/7 issuance, settlement, and interest payments. However, specific issuance terms and timing have not yet been finalized.

Gyeonggi Province will launch a stablecoin-based proof-of-concept (PoC) project in August, PANews reported, citing Etoday.

The core of the project is to examine whether blockchain-based stablecoins can be applied to local currencies, public subsidies, and payment systems.

Gyeonggi Province plans to focus on verifying programmable payments, zero-knowledge proofs, and proof-of-reserve technology that can check in real time whether stablecoin issuance matches reserve assets.

If the project proceeds smoothly, it will expand second-phase testing from October to December and evaluate safeguards against fund misuse, privacy protection, selection of applicable use cases, and feedback from residents and businesses.

According to Wu Blockchain, Digital Asset said weekly trading volume across South Korea’s five major KRW-market exchanges—Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax—declined for a fifth consecutive week.

From July 3 to July 10, combined trading volume on those exchanges totaled about KRW 9.9676 trillion, down 25.75% from roughly KRW 13.4 trillion the previous week. Compared with KRW 17.7 trillion in early June, this represents a 43.5% decline.

This is the first time in about two years and nine months that weekly trading volume across the five major domestic exchanges has fallen below KRW 10 trillion, since late September 2023.

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin miner Bitdeer said on July 11 that it will invest about $36 million to build a local mining machine manufacturing base in Nevada, United States.

The facility is planned to have the capacity to produce 10,000 SEALMINER series mining rigs per month. Bitdeer said it aims to improve production efficiency through linkage with its existing U.S. data centers and its R&D center in San Jose, California.

The manufacturing base is scheduled to be completed and begin operations within this year.