1. Nine Swiss institutions including UBS begin real-world testing of the Swiss franc stablecoin CHFD; SIX and TWINT have joined
Swiss franc stablecoins officially enter the testing phase. SIX and payments giant TWINT have joined, along with a total of 9 institutions including UBS, PostFinance, Sygnum, Raiffeisen, Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB), BCV, and Swiss Stablecoin AG. The program was initially launched in April this year. The test is based on CHFD, which is pegged 1:1 to the Swiss franc, covering automated trading by financial institutions, settlement of tokenized assets, and programmable payments—such as e-commerce anti-fraud, ticketing, and public fund disbursement. The testing is expected to continue through the end of 2026. It is still an experimental project and not a formal commercial issuance for the public.
2. The Ethereum Foundation announced the tiering of EIPs for the Hegotá upgrade, planning to push L1 toward post-quantum readiness before 2029
Two articles related to the Hegotá upgrade were published by the Ethereum Foundation’s Protocol Cluster. The 62 EIPs intended to be included in Hegotá were categorized, and current and subsequent research priorities were released, including efforts to give Ethereum L1 quantum-resistance capabilities before December 2029. This EIP categorization involved 9 teams from Protocol Cluster, with about 60 researchers, engineers, and subject-matter experts participating. A total of 397 tier ratings were submitted, along with discussions on proposals that were controversial.
3. Visa: more than 160 stablecoin-linked card projects, with payment volume up nearly 200% year over year
Visa publication stated that as of the second quarter of fiscal year 2026, more than 160 stablecoin-linked card projects worldwide have gone live, and the related payment volume increased by nearly 200% year over year. Visa said that its stablecoin settlement volume recently calculated on an annualized basis has exceeded $20 billion, representing growth of more than 15 times. As related projects expand, some early projects face the issue of having to raise daily settlement funds in advance before receiving payments from cardholders. Visa said it is working with Credit Coop to provide settlement financing for these card projects through stablecoin-denominated on-chain credit, and that the financing cost for participating projects can be reduced by up to 30%.
4. SBI uses the yen stablecoin JPYSC to buy Japanese government bonds, with an outstanding issuance balance of 20.1 billion yen
On August 2, 2023, Japanese crypto asset exchange SBI VC Trade announced the addition of decentralized stablecoin DAI to its margin trading service. SBI VC Trade has long provided spot trading services for DAI. Notably, all Japanese compliant exchanges temporarily do not allow the use of centralized stablecoins such as USDT/USDC.
5. Strategy did not buy or sell BTC last week, and spent $176.3 million to repurchase STRC
An 8-K filing submitted by Strategy to the U.S. SEC shows that between August 31 and September 7, the company did not sell shares through its ATM program, nor did it buy or sell BTC. As of September 7, Strategy held approximately 845,050 BTC, with a cumulative purchase cost of about $63.73 billion and an average cost of about $75,412 per coin. The company also increased the authorized share buyback program for digital credit securities from $1 billion to $2 billion, and during that week spent approximately $176.3 million to repurchase 1,810,885 shares of STRC preferred stock. As of September 7, its U.S. dollar reserves and U.S. dollar cash balances were approximately $5.1 billion and $1.44 billion, respectively.