Today in Crypto: Mastercard to Start Testing Its Multi-Token Network This Summer, OKX’s Liquid Marketplace Exceeds $3BN in Trading Volume, Binance’s Institutional Clients Remain Optimistic on Crypto

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
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Payment news

• Mastercard announced its Multi-Token Network (MTN), described as “a tailor-made solution for the industry.” The company’s vision for MTN is to provide a set of foundational capabilities designed to make transactions within the digital asset and blockchain ecosystems secure, scalable, and interoperable, it said, “enabling more efficient payment and commerce applications.” Beginning this summer, the beta version of MTN will be available in the UK and act as a testbed for developing live pilot applications and use cases with financial institutions, fintechs, and central banks. The first phase of the applications will be powered by tokenized bank deposits, while over time, Mastercard plans to make MTN available in additional markets around the world, it said.

Exchange news

• OKX announced that its Liquid Marketplace, an on-demand liquidity network for institutional traders, exceeded $3 billion in trading volume. This announcement follows the launch of the ‘Nitro Spreads’ feature on the OKX Liquid Marketplace, an OTC, futures spreads, and options liquidity network, allowing traders to make complex basis trades with one-click execution. Selected institutional clients who applied for early access can now use Nitro Spreadsm while wider access will be available to other institutional clients starting July 5.

Investment news

• Binance Research and Binance VIP & Institutional announced the findings of the Institutional Crypto Outlook Survey, which found that a vast majority (88%) of respondents expressed a positive sentiment on crypto assets for the next decade. It also showed that 63.5% of Binance VIP and Institutional users surveyed had a positive outlook on crypto assets over the next 12 months. These users believe more real-world use cases (26.9%) and improvements in regulatory clarity (25.3%) would drive adoption, over higher prices (3.4%) – which could be indicative of institutional participation taking on a longer-time horizon and therefore less reactive towards short-term market cycles, said the report.
• Typeface, which offers a generative AI creation platform for enterprises, announced the close of a $100 million Series B round led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Madrona, Google Ventures, Menlo Ventures, and Microsoft’s M12 venture fund. With total capital raised of $165 million, Typeface is valued at $1 billion. The funds will be used for growth, innovation, and scaling the generative AI platform, the team said.

Regulation news

• The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is ramping up its monitoring of stablecoins and cryptoassets, said a June 30 statement. Ian Woolford, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s director of money and cash, said that the RBNZ agrees that “a regulatory approach isn’t needed right now, but increased vigilance is.” A summary of 50 stakeholder submissions to an earlier RBNZ paper discussing crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) accompanied the statement. 

DeFi News

• The Ethereum Name Service (ENS), a decentralized domain name system built on the Ethereum blockchain, will implement Layer 2 interoperability with ENS domains, according to the project’s developer, ENS Labs. In a community call on Thursday, the team said it plans to utilize off-chain resolvers with the help of an ENS off-chain registrar contract and various service providers, including cb.id, Lens Protocol, and OptiNames.