Daily Brief · October 17, 2026
Circle detailed $819 million in partner payouts for the first half of 2026 as tech firms and payment networks expand competing stablecoin initiatives.
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Circle discloses $819M in H1 payouts to USDC distribution partners
Circle brought in $1.4 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, distributing 59% of it to network partners as onchain $USDC transaction volume surpassed $36 trillion.
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Visa, Stripe, and OKX deploy enterprise infrastructure around OUSD
Open Standard launched OUSD with over $1 billion in committed backing, prompting Visa to beta-test native minting tools and OKX to launch zero-fee conversions.
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Ethereum schedules Glamsterdam upgrade on Hoodi testnet for Oct. 26
The deployment activates at epoch 132,352, introducing enshrined proposer-builder separation and lifting the testnet gas limit to 200M.
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a16z Crypto launches Aerie framework for post-quantum aggregation
The lattice-based SNARK aggregates over 50,000 Falcon signatures per second on commodity hardware, offering proof-of-stake chains an alternative to recursive hash-based proofs.
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Kraken Pro introduces Unified Margin Wallet to European traders
Clients in the European Economic Area can now aggregate spot, margin, Earn, and futures balances into a single collateral pool that accepts over 40 digital assets, USD, EUR, and gold.
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Jack Henry integrates Google Cloud Universal Ledger for tokenized deposits
The partnership allows community banks and credit unions to access 24/7 programmable settlement and multilateral netting without pre-funding liquidity.
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Hyperscale Data tokenizes physical silver on Ault Blockchain
The firm tokenized 5,000 troy ounces of silver and plans to offer up to $33.5 million of tokenized preferred stock to fund an AI data center in Michigan.
The numbers
Bitcoin traded at $81,550 (−0.7%), Ethereum at $2,436 (−1.1%), and total market capitalization fell to $2.70T as Fear & Greed registered 55.
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