With 580 million crypto holders globally but only 0.003% real-world usability, TrustLinq launches a regulated infrastructure layer enabling crypto-funded fiat transactions in 70+ currencies without a bank account, bridging the trillion-dollar gap.

Traditional banks often flag crypto transactions as high-risk, causing frozen accounts or failed transfers. This guide analyzes five crypto-friendly U.S. banks (Capital One, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citibank, Ally) plus digital-first and Web3 banking alternatives for seamless fiat-crypto management.

Augustus, a startup building a federally chartered clearing bank around stablecoins and programmable money, said Tuesday it has raised $180 million in a Series B round at a $1 billion valuation. The financing was led by Tiger Global, with backing from Hummingbird, QED, the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle, and Deel, along with crypto and fintech figures including Circle co-founder Sean Neville, former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, and Rain’s Farooq Malik. Augustus said total funding now stands at $210 million. The company is targeting correspondent banking, the cross-border system that moves funds between institutions. Instead of launching its own stablecoin, Augustus is building infrastructure for banks and fintech firms to transact across both traditional payment rails and blockchain networks. Its API-first platform supports operating and FBO accounts, with settlement through Swift, ACH, SEPA, and stablecoins on a proprietary core banking system called Marble. The raise comes after Augustus received conditional approval in May for a U.S. national bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The company said it plans to use the new capital to expand across Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, where access to dollars remains limited.

A dispute over KAST’s terms of service has brought a basic but increasingly urgent question to the surface: who owns a next-generation dollar account once dollars move outside the banking system? The article argues that stablecoins have done more than speed up transfers or lower costs. By letting dollars exist as on-chain assets such as USDT and USDC, they split apart three functions that banks historically bundled together — account asset custody, settlement, and payments. That structural change has forced fintechs, wallet providers, card issuers, and regulators to confront an issue that the banking era largely settled by default. KAST sits at the center of that debate because its terms reportedly defined user top-ups of USDC as a “sale” rather than a “deposit.” In the article’s reading, that distinction shifts users from asset owners to creditors, while giving the company a lighter compliance route and access to reserve-style income if the pooled funds are deployed into short-dated U.S. Treasuries or money market funds. Other products, including Ether.fi Cash, Plasma, Avici, and Bitget Wallet, are presented as taking the opposite route: reducing or avoiding direct ownership of client assets by splitting wallet, funding, and card-payment responsibilities across separate regulated or user-controlled layers. Across the U.S., Europe, Brazil, India, Singapore, and Hong Kong, the article says the same regulatory principle keeps showing up in different forms: regulators care less about the software wrapper than about who controls the money and on whose balance sheet it sits.

A TechFlowPost opinion article by Bitget Wallet researcher Emily Sun argues that the real battle in next-generation dollar accounts is no longer about app design or payment convenience, but about legal ownership of user funds once dollars move outside the banking system. The piece uses the July 2026 controversy over KAST’s terms of service as a case study. Under the structure described in the article, a user’s USDC top-up was defined as a “sale” rather than a deposit, shifting ownership of the funds to the company and leaving users with a claim against KAST instead of direct ownership of assets. Sun says that distinction matters most in stress scenarios such as a liquidity event or bankruptcy, when users may rank as creditors rather than asset owners. The article contrasts that model with structures used by products including Ether.fi Cash, Plasma, Avici and Bitget Wallet, which aim to keep assets under user control while splitting wallet, card-account and payment-network functions across separate regulated entities. It also reviews how the U.S., Europe, Brazil, India, Singapore and Hong Kong approach stablecoin oversight. Across those regimes, Sun’s central claim is consistent: regulators care less about wallet software itself and more about who controls the money and whose balance sheet it sits on. As stablecoin supply expands, she argues, the defining question for digital dollar accounts will be who can aggregate many forms of on-chain dollars into one trusted user experience without quietly taking ownership of customer funds.

Gate US said it has partnered with SoFi on infrastructure as it builds out compliant banking rails for its U.S. operations. The company has already activated a SoFi Big Business Banking account, describing the move as part of its effort to develop secure, compliant and scalable financial solutions for the U.S. ecosystem. Gate US is also preparing to launch ACH and wire features. Once live, the ACH service is expected to let users link bank accounts and fund their Gate US accounts directly. The upcoming wire function is intended to support larger and faster domestic U.S. transfers backed by institutional-grade banking infrastructure. The company said both services are expected to roll out in U.S. jurisdictions where it is licensed, highlighting what it described as a compliance-first approach. Gate US currently holds money transmitter licenses in 36 states and operates across 47 U.S. jurisdictions. It also said multiple Gate entities have completed regulatory registrations, license applications, or received authorizations and approvals in jurisdictions including Malta, the Bahamas, Japan, Australia and Dubai.

Foresight News published a broad weekly roundup of crypto stories drawing the most attention across the market, spanning chain activity, corporate treasury moves, governance failures, exchange security disputes and U.S. regulation. One major focus was Robinhood Chain, where a surge in Meme token activity pushed CASHCAT’s market capitalization above $100 million and brought launch platform Noxa.fi into the spotlight. The outlet also highlighted Robinhood Chain’s early-stage ecosystem buildout, including its 90-day gas fee waiver and a total value locked figure of about $76.73 million as of July 6, 2026. The roundup also revisited several high-profile disputes and balance-sheet events. Strategy sold 3,588 BTC at an average price of about $60,200, marking its largest net sale since adopting its Bitcoin strategy in 2020 and its first institutional-style reduction in six years. The report said the sale implied a loss of roughly $54.81 million against a cost basis of about $75,476 per coin. Elsewhere, according to The Wall Street Journal, AI Financial was in talks to sell Alt5 Sigma Canada for up to $15 million after its heavy WLFI exposure left it with locked tokens, limited cash and an SEC going-concern warning. Other stories in the package included Polymarket’s dispute over whether Cristiano Ronaldo cried after Portugal’s World Cup exit, Paradigm’s new $1.2 billion fund and broader focus on AI and robotics, Zapper’s planned shutdown, YGG’s closure of YGG Play, a governance attack on BonkDAO, a Gate user’s reported $1.7 million loss, Ondo’s move into perpetuals, controversy around OUSD partner claims, and weakening odds for the Clarity Act this year.

Archer Aviation shares fell nearly 10% in premarket trading after the company posted a $129.9 million third-quarter net loss and announced a $126 million cash acquisition of Hawthorne Airport, raising fresh concerns over its financial outlook.