Welcome to Kaupr Today

Welcome to Kaupr Today, your morning briefing where global risk, regulation and digital rails meet. In today’s issue, US and EU rule‑making around stablecoins and MiCA, the Nordic push on listed crypto and everyday payments, and Ethereum’s zk‑powered “decentralized renaissance” are all converging to decide whether digital assets become core macro plumbing or stay a speculative sideshow.

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If you’re new to Kaupr Today or missed the first issues, you can jump straight into the latest editions from 4 - 15 January via the Kaupr Today home page.​

Welcome!
Morten

Stablecoins & digital cash rails

CLARITY bill would lock dollar tokens into non‑yielding rails

Kaupr has just published a deep dive on the US Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act, arguing that it would lock “payment stablecoins” into a narrow role: fully backed by cash and short‑term Treasuries, but legally barred from paying simple, passive yield to holders even when reserves earn interest. Together with the existing US stablecoin framework, the analysis shows how Washington’s approach fixes regulated dollar tokens as non‑yielding pipes while pushing any return into banks, Treasuries or separate wrappers like tokenized funds and DeFi strategies – a design strongly backed by bank lobbyists worried about deposit flight and questioned by parts of the crypto industry that wants transparent, on‑chain yield‑sharing.​

Why it matters: This is exactly the kind of structural shift Kaupr exists to unpack – CLARITY coverage maps how US rules could make stablecoins safer rails for payments and trading, while forcing users into more complex products to access even “risk‑free” yield and preserving most of the upside for banks and the state.​

Source main article: The silent war over stablecoin yields in the Senate, Kaupr
Source side article: What the CLARITY Act could actually mean for users, builders and banks, Kaupr

Tether with the largest cross‑chain liquidity network

USDT0, the unified liquidity network for Tether’s USDT, has moved more than 63 billion dollars in total value across hundreds of thousands of transactions and 18 connected chains in its first year, with over 400 million dollars in bridge volume in the last 24 hours alone. Built on LayerZero’s OFT standard and connected directly to native Tether deployments via a “Legacy Mesh,” USDT0 has become the most active omnichain token on LayerZero and has already extended its unified liquidity model to Tether Gold (XAUt0) and offshore yuan (CNHT0), helping ecosystems like Plasma and Polygon launch with record day‑one stablecoin liquidity.​

Why it matters: USDT0 shows how fast unified, cross‑chain Tether liquidity can become core infrastructure, giving markets a de‑wrapped, programmable dollar rail that stands in sharp contrast to CLARITY’s tightly regulated, non‑yielding “payment stablecoin” design.​

Source: USDT0 becomes the largest and fastest‑growing cross‑chain liquidity network, $63 billion moved in one year, CryptoBriefing / Chainwire.

Institutional tokenization & interoperability

Inside kinexys: JP Morgans $3 trillion tokenization platform

In a recent deep dive, Anniina Saari explores how J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys platform has processed over 3 trillion dollars in cumulative transaction volume and more than 5 billion dollars in daily flows as of December 2025, running tokenized deposits, collateral and fund workflows on permissioned infrastructure for approved participants. The piece also shows how J.P. Morgan is extending selected deposit‑token and settlement rails from Kinexys to public blockchain environments for institutional use cases, illustrating how large incumbents can blend closed‑loop control with on‑chain connectivity​

Why it matters: Kinexys gives Nordic banks and asset managers a concrete reference for how tokenized deposits, collateral and funds can operate at scale, showing that regulated, permissioned tokenization can still plug into public rails where it adds liquidity and interoperability.​

Source: Inside Kinexys: J.P. Morgan’s $3 Trillion Transaction Platform, AssetTokenization.com

Swift’s tokenised bond trial and shared ledger plans

Swift, working with BNP Paribas Securities Services, Intesa Sanpaolo and Societe Generale – FORGE, has completed an interoperability trial that enabled exchange and settlement of tokenised bonds, with delivery‑versus‑payment, interest payouts and redemptions orchestrated across both blockchain platforms and traditional systems. Building on earlier pilots with UBS Asset Management, Chainlink, Citi, Northern Trust, the Reserve Bank of Australia and others, Swift now plans to add a blockchain‑based shared ledger to its infrastructure to support real‑time, 24/7 cross‑border payments and act as a neutral orchestrator that connects fragmented “digital islands” of tokenised assets and currencies.​

Why it matters: Swift’s move to become a shared execution layer for tokenised bonds and payments could give banks and custodians – including Nordic institutions – a way to access digital‑asset markets and interoperability at scale without abandoning existing ISO 20022 messaging and operational workflows.​

Source: Swift takes bold steps to unlock the benefits of digital finance on a global scale, Swift.

European market structure & 2025 backdrop

Europe’s ‘crypto renaissane - Bitpanda IPO

Btpanda is preparing a 4–5 billion euro IPO in Frankfurt in early 2026, presented as a signal that Europe’s MiCA‑driven crypto market is maturing and can support large, regulated retail and institutional platforms. The Vienna‑based broker, which already handles around 60% of Austria’s crypto trading, plans to use IPO proceeds for product development, licensing and geographic expansion as MiCA passporting, euro‑stablecoins such as EURC and RWA tokenization platforms like Rayls Labs and Ondo Finance gain traction.​

Why it matters: Bitpanda’s float is a high‑profile test of public‑market appetite for MiCA‑compliant crypto businesses just as euro stablecoins and tokenized assets move from pilots into live infrastructure.​

Source: The Strategic Case for Investing in Europe’s Crypto Renaissance: Why Bitpanda’s $5B Frankfurt IPO Signals a Pivotal Moment in 2026, AInvest.​

Europe’s first mica‑banked crypto trading

KBC Group, Belgium’s second‑largest bank, will let retail clients buy and sell bitcoin and ether via its Bolero investment platform from mid‑February 2026, in what it describes as the country’s first fully MiCA‑compliant bank‑run crypto service. The bank has submitted a Crypto Asset Service Provider notification and is positioning itself as the first Belgian bank to operate under MiCA rules, letting self‑directed investors trade crypto in the same regulated environment they already use for stocks and funds.​

Why it matters: KBC’s move shows how MiCA is shifting from abstract framework to concrete bank products, signalling to Nordic and European incumbents that regulated crypto trading is becoming a standard retail feature rather than a fringe experiment.​

Source: Belgium’s 2nd Largest Bank KBC Becomes 1st To Offer Crypto Trading Under MiCA Rules, Coinpedia / TradingView.

Nordic analysis and events

2025 in review: a wild start, then a sobering comedown

Norwegian exchange Firi’s year‑in‑review, written by analyst Mads Eberhard, notes that crypto hit new record highs in 2025 but faded into year‑end as risk appetite dropped, even though corporate buying, US Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs and a series of Fed and ECB rate cuts supported prices earlier in the year. Digital Asset Treasury companies are estimated to have bought roughly 56.4 billion dollars of the top five crypto assets, US spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs attracted around 21.3 and 9.7 billion dollars in net inflows, stablecoin supply grew from about 206 to 308 billion dollars and tokenized real‑world assets jumped from around 5.7 to nearly 19.8 billion dollars, while all of the top five coins set new all‑time highs before most ended the year below January levels.​

Why it matters: Firi’s analysis underlines that even when prices look shaky into a year‑end, structural adoption in stablecoins, RWAs and institutional vehicles can keep deepening – a backdrop Nordic investors and asset managers need to factor into 2026 allocation and risk decisions.​

Source: Year in review 2025: A crazy start, then sobering up, Firi.​

Kaupr TV live launches from Stockholm

Kaupr TV Live is a new live show broadcasting from Kaupr’s Stockholm studio, giving builders, professionals and investors sharper insight into the digital economy with news, guests and interviews from across the Nordic and European Web3 and digital‑finance ecosystem. The premiere episode airs Thursday 23 January 2026 from 12:00–13:00 CET, hosted by Morten Myrstad with co‑host Leon Aleksander Karlsen Solbakken, and will stream on a Kaupr landing page, LinkedIn Live and the Kaupr YouTube channel for live viewing and replays.​

Why it matters: Kaupr TV Live builds on Kaupr’s mix of news, newsletters, video and events to create a Nordic broadcast hub where regulators, banks, builders and investors can track how Web3 and digital finance are evolving in real time.

Source: Kaupr TV landing page, Kaupr

You can also find a lot of upcoming community and industry events in our Event Calendar, updated Wednesday.

What to watch out for

Today’s key catalyst is the next round of US discussions on the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act and follow‑on rulemaking, where lawmakers and regulators are debating whether to hard‑ban passive stablecoin yields as part of a broader market‑structure package. How far they go in fixing dollar tokens as non‑yielding payment rails will interact with Tether‑based dollar systems like USDT0, live institutional platforms like Kinexys and Swift’s planned shared ledger, Visa Direct’s stablecoin capabilities, Europe’s MiCA‑era bank and IPO pipeline and the post‑2025 adoption trends Firi highlights in stablecoins and RWAs, shaping how Nordic banks and asset managers approach tokenized dollars and euro‑denominated infrastructure in 2026.​

Why it matters: This mix of US market‑structure rules, cross‑chain Tether liquidity networks, large‑scale tokenization platforms, card‑network stablecoin rails, European bank and exchange listings and strong Nordic‑relevant adoption data is a live exam of whether bitcoin, stablecoins and tokenized funds become everyday tools inside Nordic traditional finance or stay trapped in specialist silos.

Stay with Kaupr Today

Thank you for reading Kaupr Today – feel free to forward this briefing to a colleague or reply with news tips and perspectives from across the Nordic digital‑finance ecosystem.

Wishing you a great weekend, and welcome back on Monday morning for the next edition of Kaupr Today.

Best regards
Morten Myrstad
Founder & Editor