CoinSpotMarket Update
Ripple To Launch Bank In U.S. & JPMorgan Expands to Ethereum
7 mins
2 hours ago
7 mins
2 hours ago
Strive, a Bitcoin treasury company listed in the U.S., increased its holdings by 6,182 BTC last week for a cost of $727 million ($511 million USD), bringing its total balance to 43,000 BTC.
The firm is quickly closing in on Metaplanet and Twenty One for second and third spot among public company holders, currently sitting in fourth place. Metaplanet and Twenty One currently own 44,000 BTC and 43,514 BTC, respectively.
Strive CEO Matt Cole has repeatedly stated that the company’s aim is to finish the year as the second-largest public holder of Bitcoin. It comes after Strive pivoted to become a Bitcoin treasury company in September 2025.
Strive’s moves are part of a wider trend of public companies accumulating Bitcoin. As of late October, they hold a total of nearly 1.3 million BTC or 6.2% of the total supply of 21 million BTC. These companies typically fund their purchases by raising capital through share sales, debt or preferred stock.
While this trend started in 2020, as the below chart shows, it went to a new level in late 2024. This was pioneered by Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, the company co-founded by Michael Saylor. Strategy holds close to 850,000 BTC, with more than half of that being purchased across 2024 and 2025.
Ripple, the technology company behind the cryptocurrency XRP, has been granted final approval to set up a national trust bank in the U.S. called Ripple National Trust Bank (RNTB). The approver was the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a federal banking regulator that sits under the U.S. Treasury Department.
Ripple’s bank will be able to hold the cash and other assets that back Ripple USD (RLUSD), a stablecoin designed to stay at the value of one U.S. dollar. It can also act as a collateral trustee for holders of the RLUSD stablecoin. Of note, the charter is not a full banking license, meaning that Ripple cannot take everyday deposits or take loans, for example.
In a press release by Ripple, CEO Brad Garlinghouse commented on the strategic importance of the approval. “We’ve spent over a decade building regulated financial infrastructure that institutions can actually use at scale. A national trust charter gives us an even stronger foundation for RLUSD and the institutional products we’re building across payments, custody and capital markets.”
With RLUSD’s reserves now under federal oversight, it is possible that the stablecoin will appeal more to financial institutions that are looking to adopt stablecoins. Having launched in late 2024, RLUSD has steadily grown to become one of the largest stablecoins, carrying a total supply of nearly $3.7 billion ($2.6 billion USD).
Last week, Solana released arguably its most significant upgrade since 2020. The upgrade, known as ‘Alpenglow’, dramatically lowered how much time it takes for transactions to finalise (i.e. transaction finality). This was achieved mainly by overhauling how Solana’s validators communicate and agree with each other. (Validators are the computers that process transactions and vote on which ones are valid.)
Prior to Alpenglow going live, transactions took nearly 13 seconds to finalise. Now, they are more than 99% faster with a target finality time of approximately 150 milliseconds.
With transaction finality now so much faster, common applications of Solana such as payments and trading are poised to become much more responsive. Relatedly, the release of Alpenglow should improve the user experience for merchants accepting payments and exchanges crediting deposits.
JPMorgan, the largest bank in the U.S., made its JPM Coin dollar-deposit token available on Ethereum (ETH) for institutional clients. This follows its earlier launch on Base, adding a second public blockchain for institutions to access. (A deposit token is a digital version of a bank deposit that is transferable and programmable on a blockchain.)
The overarching purpose of JPM Coin is to make it easier and cheaper to move money, post collateral, and settle transactions on public blockchains. Target users of JPM Coin are predominantly corporate clients, financial institutions, and payment-service providers.
For corporate clients, using JPM Coin means being able to settle near real-time payments and automate fund flows without pre-funding. For financial institutions, JPM Coin can reduce counterparty risk and capital drag via real-time on-chain settlement and collateral posting. Finally, for payment-service providers, the appeal of JPM Coin is that it delivers 24/7 cross-border programmable payouts with fewer intermediaries and lower costs.
