Discover a short recap of what happened in institutional crypto this May, as the market keeps maturing with growing involvement from governments and institutions.

Regulation

  • US Senate Banking Committee advanced the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, it’s one of the clearer signals so far on how the US might approach token classification, DeFi, and stablecoins.
  • FDIC pushed bank-level compliance standards for stablecoin issuers.
  • Brazil barred regulated FX providers from settling cross-border payments in crypto. Individuals can still hold crypto.
  • Japan recognized qualifying foreign stablecoins as legal payment instruments 

TradFi

  • Charles Schwab launched spot BTC/ETH trading in brokerage accounts.
  • Morgan Stanley is testing crypto trading on ETRADE.
  • Goldman Sachs filed for a Bitcoin Premium Income ETF.

Infrastructure

  • DTCC, the backbone of US securities settlement, will pilot tokenized asset trades in July and roll them out more broadly in October, with major institutions including BlackRock involved.
  • Circle raised $222M for Arc (new institutional L1) at $3B valuation.
  • BlackRock filed with SEC for 2 tokenized Treasury funds.
  • Tokenized RWAs up 200%+ in a year, now $30B+.

Payments

  • Western Union launched a stablecoin-based product on Solana for cross-border transfers
  • Visa stablecoin pilot hit $7B annualized run rate, 9 blockchains, 130+ card programs, 50+ countries.
  • AWS launched AgentCore Payments: AI agents pay in USDC. 
  • Total dollar stablecoin supply passed $300B 

Capital

  • a16z finished raising a new $2.2 billion fund to invest in crypto startups, bringing its total crypto war chest to around $9.8 billion.
  • Haun Ventures closed $1B fund.
  • Institutions absorbed 5x daily BTC mining supply (~450 BTC/day). 

Elsewhere

  • Saudi Arabia: $12.5B mandates to tokenize real-world assets, starting with real estate.
  • Japan: 8+ firms (incl. SBI, Rakuten) preparing crypto investment trusts; rules expected by 2028.
  • Under the EU's MiCA rules, Spain is leading Europe in everyday use of the euro stablecoin EURC, ahead of Italy and Germany.

Institutional involvement in crypto isn't a question anymore. It's happening. The real question is how well the infrastructure holds up at scale.

MidChains is a regulated digital asset platform and OTC desk built for institutional clients and qualified investors. Discover more news about the institutional crypto market on our blog.

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