Mastercard and Chainlink Introduce Onchain Payments with Traditional Cards

Some probably thought of The Big Short when they saw the headline: the head of the U.S. housing regulator has asked Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to explore counting crypto in mortgage underwriting. BTC, ETH (and Fartcoin?) may soon back U.S. home loans.

To be clear, it’s just a proposal (for now), and only for assets that are custodied on U.S.-regulated exchanges.

Still, if implemented, it would mark a profound shift: crypto wealth, no longer shadow capital, stepping onto the balance sheets of the American middle class. Let’s just hope it doesn’t come with a Michael Lewis sequel.

These are the week’s big stories we’re covering today:

• Ethena and BaFin agree on redemption plan
• Mastercard and Chainlink tackle onchain payments with cards
• Republic plans to tokenize private equity

MARKET COMMENTARY

Last updated: June 27th, 01:15 a.m. CET

After several days of heightened tensions in the Middle East, Bitcoin regained ground this week, supported by a retreat in the U.S. Dollar Index and a shift in market sentiment toward de-escalation.

Still, BTC hasn’t reclaimed its pre-escalation highs. Coinbase, by contrast, surged to a new all-time high on Thursday, gaining nearly 25% over the past five trading days. Some investors appear to have rotated out of Circle, which briefly hit a ludicrous $299 on Monday, making a run to flip Coinbase, before retreating to $213. That’s still nearly a 600% gain since IPO.

The big question now: when will public market momentum spill over into crypto markets?

HIGH SIGNAL BITES

• Coinbase announces launch date for U.S. perpetuals. The new offering will go live on July 21.💱
• Texas governor signs Bitcoin reserve bill. The bill directs the state to establish a publicly funded Bitcoin reserve, managed independently from the main treasury. To fund it, the state will appropriate $10 million.🇺🇸
• Major DeFi players introduce Web3SOC. The institutional framework is designed to help evaluate the operational, financial, security, and regulatory aspects of DeFi platforms, and is being launched by the likes of Morpho, Uniswap, and Kiln.🏦
• Ethena and BaFin agree to redemption plan. Once the plan is completed, BaFin will have no outstanding issues related to Ethena GmbH's USDe operations, and the entity will be officially liquidated in Germany. The move follows the German regulator’s statement from March this year, in which it halted Ethena’s operations in the country.🤝
• SoFi unveils crypto-features. The $25 billion Nasdaq-listed fintech will soon let its 10+ million users receive paychecks in stablecoins, make cross-border transfers using blockchains, and access onchain rewards.💵
• Kraken unveils Krak. The exchange’s new money app enables fee-less transfers in over 300 currencies across more than 160 countries. The offering also includes a crypto debit card.🐙

ONCHAIN PAYMENTS

Mastercard and Chainlink Tackle Onchain Payments with Traditional Cards

Onchain spending, unlocked: Mastercard and Chainlink have teamed up to launch Swapper Finance, a new retail flow that lets users purchase tokens directly on decentralized exchanges using a Mastercard.

Why it matters: For the first time, Mastercard’s 3.5 billion cardholders can interact directly with onchain markets without needing an exchange account, stablecoin preloading, or a custody intermediary. Unlike most fiat on-ramps, this integration executes the final swap fully onchain and delivers tokens straight to the user’s wallet.

How it works: The Swapper system is powered by a coordinated set of partners, each handling one leg of the flow:

1. The user starts a token purchase on Swapper using their Mastercard.
2. Shift4, a major payments processor, handles the card transaction and routes it through Mastercard’s network.
3. zerohash, a regulated crypto infrastructure provider, converts the fiat into stablecoins and transfers them to the Swapper smart contract.
4. Chainlink validates the transaction details and triggers the onchain swap.
5. Swapper Finance, built on XSwap and Uniswap, executes the trade, sending the desired tokens directly to the user’s wallet.

Flow of operations | source: Chainlink

Stablecoin strategy in motion: The Chainlink integration is part of a broader push by Mastercard to bring stablecoins into the mainstream. Recent moves include a partnership with Paxos to support USDG issuance, support for PYUSD and FIUSD across settlement and card products, and a joint pilot with MoonPay to launch stablecoin-linked cards.

Building deeper rails: Beneath these user-facing products sits a deeper layer of infrastructure. Mastercard is quietly investing in tools that bring compliance, programmability, and identity to onchain transactions — both for retail and institutional use cases.

• With Mastercard Crypto Credential, the company is introducing a new trust layer that allows wallet addresses to remain pseudonymous by default, but verifiable when required — enabling compliant fund transfers and boosting approval rates across payment flows.
• With the Mastercard Multi-Token Network (MTN), it’s building a programmable settlement system that supports not just stablecoins, but tokenized financial assets and institutional B2B use cases.

What’s next: Mastercard has discussed working with Chainlink to connect MTN with onchain protocols. The same tools that now enable retail swaps may soon support institutional-grade purchases of real-world assets.

Last week, I moderated a panel with leaders from Stripe, Squads Protocol, Iron (MoonPay), and Ivy — some of the most active teams in stablecoin infrastructure. I asked the question: what’s still missing? Surprisingly, the answer was basically “not much.”

Now, maybe they just didn’t want to give their competitors a roadmap for what to build. But it didn’t feel like posturing. Over the past two years, the stablecoin stack has matured fast. Wallet UX, compliance rails, payment APIs… It’s not perfect, but it’s no longer broken. What once felt fragmented is starting to function as a real system.

This is especially visible in fiat onramps. Once the most frustrating part of the user journey, it’s now getting integrations with scale. The Mastercard x Chainlink rollout is just the latest proof point.

Still, we’re not there yet. Open the Swapper interface today, and a $1,000 card payment returns just $922 in stablecoins. That’s a 7.8% loss on entry. Liquidity is thin, and until that changes, scale remains out of reach.

EVENT RECOMMENDATION

RWA Summit: Tokenization Meets TradFi in Cannes

RWA Summit: Next Tuesday, Centrifuge is hosting the next edition of its flagship Real-World Asset Summit, one of the most anticipated gatherings in the tokenization space. This stop takes place in Cannes, alongside EthCC.

What to expect: A full day focused on the intersection of tokenization, credit, and crypto — bringing together 350 handpicked leaders from both traditional capital markets and DeFi.

Key Details:

• July 1, 9 AM–7 PM @ Palm Beach Cannes
• Speakers include Stani Kulechov (Aave), Sergey Nazarov (Chainlink), Christine Moy (Apollo), Denelle Dixon (Stellar), and more.
• Application-only entry: €350 per ticket

Meet us there: Louis and Max from the Blockstories team will be on site. If you’re planning to attend or still considering it, drop us a line. We’d love to meet you there!

View Agenda

TOKENIZATION

Investment Platform Plans to Tokenize Private Equity on Solana

Onchain private equity: On Wednesday, U.S. investment platform Republic introduced “Mirror Tokens”, a new type of asset that tracks the value of private company shares and allows retail investors to trade them globally.

• SpaceX first: The first token, issued on Solana, will offer exposure to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, with plans to expand the offering to other high-profile companies like OpenAI and Stripe.

Democratization: Since 2016, Republic has been using licenses and crowdfunding exemptions under U.S. securities law to enable retail investors to access private markets and alternative assets typically reserved for accredited investors.

• Track record: To date, more than $2.6 billion has been deployed through platforms, funds, and affiliates within Republic’s ecosystem by over 3 million investors across 150+ countries.

Mirror Tokens: For the new offering, Republic is making use of the JOBS Act, which lets private U.S. companies issue securities and raise up to $5 million a year from retail investors. Here’s how it works:

• No approval required: Republic issues the tokenized securities itself, with the tokens tracking shares of private companies like SpaceX. Through this structure, it doesn’t need permission from the underlying firms.
• Valuation basis: Token pricing is based on how company shares are trading in secondary markets.
• Minimum investment: Individuals need to join a waitlist and can invest as little as $50, up to a cap of $5,000.
• Payout logic: If the company is acquired or goes public, Republic is obliged to pay out the increase in valuation to token holders.
• Liquidity: Tokens are subject to a one-year lockup before becoming tradable on Republic’s secondary market.

Regulatory gray zone: While Republic CEO Kendrick Nguyen said he’s confident in the tokens’ legality, there are plenty of questions. First, investors won’t receive financial disclosures or equity ownership. Second, legal experts question whether companies like SpaceX might challenge the structure. And third, it seems like the tokens could still attract scrutiny from regulators.

Obviously, Republic’s structure isn’t exactly investor-friendly. Besides the trust assumptions involved, the whole user experience suffers from all the regulatory hoops Republic has to overcome.

But maybe making private equity tradable on blockchains isn’t the best approach anyway. There’s a lot potential in using crypto rails to make going public cheaper, easier, and therefore more attractive for companies.

And that’s exactly where we’re seeing real momentum right now. Alongside infrastructure efforts from players like Superstate and its Opening Bell platform, which aims to bring IPOs onchain, regulators are also sending positive signals. Just yesterday, trading platform Dinari became the first to receive a U.S. broker-dealer license to offer tokenized stocks, allowing U.S. investors to access equities onchain legally.

Kalshi | $185 million | Unknown : One of the world’s leading prediction markets.

Digital Asset | $135 million | Strategic : Developer of the institutional-grade Canton network. We asked CEO Yuval Rooz on how the company plans to use this capital, see here.

Zama | $57 million | Series B : Cryptography company working on the development of Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), which enables the creation of fully encrypted applications.

Veda | $18 million | Unknown : DeFi vault platform, providing infrastructure that enables apps and institutions to offer yield products without exposing users to complex mechanics.

Concrete | $9.5 million | Strategic : A suite of DeFi products powering secure, automated yield strategies that enable new derivatives for any onchain asset.

Yield.xyz | $5 million | Strategic : Infrastructure provider that offers APIs for accessing stablecoin and DeFi yields.

Disclaimer: The information provided in the Crypto Briefing by Blockstories does not constitute investment advice. Accordingly, we assume no liability for any investment decisions made based on the content presented herein.