MASSIVE! WELLS FARGO CRYPTO PLANS REVEALED! MASTERCARD'S NEW CRYPTO PROGRAM!

**Tony Edward** (0:05)
Hey everyone, welcome into the Thinking Crypto Podcast, your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews. I'm your host, Tony Edward. On your way in, please hit that subscribe button as well as the thumbs up button and leave a comment below. If you're listening on a podcast platform such as Spotify or Apple Podcast, please be sure to follow and leave a five star rating. Folks, I want to apologize ahead of time for my voice. I'm a bit under the weather, have a bit of a cold, so that's why I skipped yesterday's episode, but we got big news today, huge adoption news by banks and much more. So let's kick it off. Okay, the first news item, Wells Fargo signals deeper push into crypto, filing a trademark for WFUSD.
Now, WFUSD sounds like a stable coin, right? We've seen that other folks who have launched stable coins, like Ripple or LUSD, like PayPal, PYUSD, so it certainly sounds like a stable coin, but this should come as no surprise. We've been seeing JP Morgan, Citibank, PNC Bank and others have been launching crypto services.
They've talked about launching a stable coin, they want to offer crypto trading, custody and much more. So this is the direction that Puck is heading in. It's inevitable all the banks will participate in one way or the other. So let me give you the details here. So Wells Fargo filed a crypto related trademark application for WFUSD, signaling a deeper push into crypto and blockchain services. The USPTO filing indicates WFUSD would support cryptocurrency payment processing, digital asset trading and software for tokenizing assets, with the name hinting at a deposit token or stablecoin. Of course, of course, guys. And notice all the different aspects they highlighted here. Tokenization, digital asset trading, crypto payment processing. So all the banks are going to get involved and you're going to see them do some very interesting things with crypto such as using crypto for collateral for loans, mortgages and things along those lines. So the move follows similar efforts by JP Morgan and comes amid broader interest from major US banks in tokenized assets and stablecoins. So many of you know JP Morgan, they've been at this for a long time with consensus when they launched JPM coin back in the day. But it was a wall garden, right? They tried to do a private permission type of setup, but no one's going to trust it, right? It's just another wall garden. So we're seeing that they're now bridging to public chain. So most recently, JP Morgan, they launched their permission USD deposit token on base, which is the Ethereum layer 2 created by Coinbase. So I'm very curious to see what WFUSD, Wells Fargo's deposit token or stable coin, how that's going to be set up, maybe similar, right? They're going to launch on different blockchains. Usually they start with Ethereum, but they could start with base because Coinbase, they have a crypto as a service solution, which makes it easier for many of these banks. And JP Morgan City, PNC, and I believe some others are already leveraging Coinbase's service. So guys, I mean, just look at what's happening. So we're still in the early innings. This is just a tippity iceberg and there's going to be a lot more built out. But this is just a news item here that you got to share with a crypto skeptic, right? With a blockchain skeptic who they don't get what's going on. They may have just read certain headlines, but they haven't gone further to educate themselves. So make sure you share this type of news with them. Here's another example of a massive financial giant getting more involved in crypto. So Mastercard launches new crypto partner program, a global initiative which brings together more than 85 industry leaders, ensuring that what's next works with what already does. So, TradFi is trying to bring together crypto and the other TradFi companies to make sure this all works together, right? Because infrastructure is being set up right now. And we know Mastercard, this is not their first go-around. They're supporting stable coins and crypto in different ways. They're using blockchain tech. I interviewed Mastercard's head of crypto last year. I should be having him back on the podcast soon to talk about all these things. But Mastercard is not playing around. And same thing with Visa. Visa is not playing around. The race is on. So the credit card companies, the stock exchanges, the banks, the investment firms like BlackRock and Fidelity and much more, all getting involved. It was once taboo to talk about all of this and to say, oh, yeah, we're going to look at blockchain and crypto, right? At one point, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, was calling this all a scam as well. But now it will be foolish to not have a strategy. So that's why you are seeing so many developments from these big trad fire firms. Now, moving ahead, BitGo to custody digital assets for StableX's $100 million Stablecoin plan. Many of you may know BitGo, founded by Mike Belshee. They're one of the top crypto custodians and they provide a variety of services, but they're mostly known for custody and trading services. And it looks like they have been selected here by StableX Technologies, Digital Asset Treasury, as it plans to acquire up to $100 million in crypto tokens tied to the Stablecoin sector. According to Tuesday's announcement, BitGo Bank and Trust will serve as the custodian for StableX's digital asset holdings, while BitGo's trading platforms will help execute the company's planned acquisitions through its over-the-counter liquidity desk. StableX, SBLX, is a publicly traded company focused on Stablecoin infrastructure and related technologies. Here's a quote, The StableX deal is notable because it goes beyond Bitcoin-centric treasury strategies. It signals demand for institutional custody infrastructure around Stablecoin ecosystem tokens. You can see that the asset class is maturing. It's going beyond Bitcoin. It's going beyond just altcoins. There's tokenized assets. There are Stablecoins and much more. So really, really great stuff here. Okay, moving ahead. Kraken's tokenized stock venue starts points program, hinting at possible ecosystem token. So this is interesting. Kraken's been doing a lot. So X-Stocks, a Kraken-linked tokenized equities platform, is launching an X-rewards program to incentivize traders, liquidity providers and DeFi builders who use its on-chain stock tokens. Point systems in crypto often precede token launches or governance incentives. Though X-Stocks has not officially announced plans for a token yet, the move comes as tokenized equities rapidly expand with more than $1 billion in value locked and growing interest from traditional finance, including a new Nasdaq-Kraken partnership to distribute tokenized stocks outside the US. So many of you may recall earlier in the week, Nasdaq announced they're partnering with Kraken to be able to expand and go 24-7. So huge things are happening on Kraken's front. And look, if Kraken goes public with all these partnerships, I'm certainly going to look to buy the stock. Now, I never buy the initial IPO moment, right? Because the stock pumps. But I'm going to wait for it to go down and then scoop up. Same thing I was doing with Circle. Because Circle, I think many of you saw it pumped like crazy. Then it corrected, right? So you want to buy when there's blood on the street. So I'm diversified. I hold equities, stocks and so forth along with crypto. And certainly on the stock side, more so crypto companies than traditional tech companies. Although I do have some Tesla stock and things like that. Okay, moving ahead. We have continued synergy between the SEC and the CFTC. So SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Mike Seelig, they posted a photo of themselves working together, signing a memorandum of understanding, which solidifies their efforts to achieve their mutual goals of harmonization. And of course, a lot of this is around crypto and digital assets. So it's great to see these agencies coming together. So it ends a lot of the confusion and problems we've had historically. And they can get the rule making done because it's one thing to have the Clarity Act, but if you don't have the agencies which are doing a lot of the enforcing and the guidance giving you the rules, then we're not going to get very far. But the fact that they're doing this while the Clarity Act is being worked on, and we obviously got to figure out the bank stablecoin yield situation, it's great to see the two agencies working together. And this is going to be really, really important for the adoption or further adoption by institutions and even the regular folks who want to adopt crypto in different ways. So really, really big stuff here. Folks, this episode is brought to you by I Trust Capital, which makes crypto investing easy via an IRA. So, I Trust Capital offers you the IRA setup, where you can invest in Bitcoin and the top altcoins, as well as gold and silver, and you can get huge tax benefits as a result. So if you have a long-term view on these asset classes, crypto and precious metals, and you know gold and silver have been doing incredibly well, you can invest via the IRA, and you can help minimize your tax implications when you do decide to sell.