September’s 3rd Week In Crypto: Circle, Coinbase And X Announce New Partnerships
This week’s deals cluster around access: X letting anyone trade straight from a tweet, Coinbase training the next wave of Singapore engineers, Circle launching a chain with over 100 institutions already inside it.
Even Cardano’s Mastercard tie-up is really about the same thing: getting blockchain rails in front of people who’d otherwise never touch them.
Standard Chartered Expands Its Digital Asset Partnership With LMAX Group
Standard Chartered has been appointed digital asset custodian for LMAX Group, operating through its DFSA-regulated DIFC branch in Dubai and through Standard Chartered Luxembourg, making LMAX the first client onto the bank’s Luxembourg custody platform since it secured MiCA authorization back in June 2026.
This builds directly on work the two firms already did together. Back in July 2026, Standard Chartered and LMAX Group ran what they described as the industry’s first live digital asset prime broking trades, pairing the bank’s credit and custody capabilities with LMAX’s institutional market infrastructure.
This latest expansion adds regulated custody and settlement on top of that existing relationship, giving LMAX dual access to regulated infrastructure across both Luxembourg and the DIFC, useful coverage for a firm serving institutional clients spread across Europe and the Middle East.
Ole Matthiessen, who leads transaction services and digital assets at Standard Chartered, said institutional clients scaling their digital asset businesses need “trusted infrastructure” that works consistently across markets and regulatory regimes, rather than something that has to be rebuilt for every jurisdiction.
LMAX CEO David Mercer described the custody mandate as a natural next step following the earlier prime broking work.
The two firms are also reportedly exploring off-exchange custody solutions, letting clients keep assets safely with a regulated bank while still accessing institutional trading liquidity elsewhere, addressing a security and operational tension that’s been a real sticking point for institutional crypto adoption.
X Launches the Cashtag Partner Program, Linking Posts to Trading Platforms
X has rolled out its Cashtag Partner Program in the US, connecting posts and market data on stocks, ETFs and cryptocurrencies directly to trading platforms including Interactive Brokers, Moomoo, Gemini, Kraken and Coinbase.
X itself doesn’t execute any trades. Tapping through simply hands the user off to whichever partner platform they choose to actually place the order.
The mechanics are fairly simple: a user taps a supported cashtag in their feed, which opens a page with a price chart and related posts, then hits “Trade” to get routed to one of the five partners, where they log in or create an account and complete the transaction on that platform’s own site or app.
This isn’t X’s first move into financial infrastructure. Cashtags have been building toward this for most of the year. Back in January, the company introduced Smart Cashtags, letting users link a ticker to a specific asset or smart contract to track price and related discussion directly inside the feed.
And in August 2026, former X head of product Nikita Bier had already announced trading buttons for crypto specifically, clarifying at the time that third-party services would handle the actual transaction processing rather than X itself.
The pattern here is consistent with X’s broader ambitions: building out features like X Money alongside this cashtag infrastructure, all pointed toward the company’s stated goal of becoming something closer to an “everything app.”
Coinbase Launches a Singapore Engineering Hub With the Economic Development Board
Coinbase has opened an engineering hub in Singapore in partnership with the country’s Economic Development Board, aimed at training local engineers and growing the region’s blockchain developer talent pool.
The stated goal isn’t just hiring. It’s positioning Singapore as a launchpad for people early in their careers who want to work in Web3 but don’t necessarily have crypto experience yet.
Coinbase framed the move as advancing its goal of “increasing economic freedom by onboarding one billion people into the crypto economy,” while also aligning with Singapore’s Smart Nation 2.0 digital upskilling strategy.
Hassan Ahmed, Coinbase’s country director for Singapore, described the hub as a structured program serving both undergraduate interns and newly hired engineers, saying the company actively recruits “fresh graduates and early-career engineers who may lack crypto experience but share our mission.”
The timing tracks Coinbase’s broader regulatory progress in the country. It received in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2022, followed by a full Major Payment Institution license in 2023, which Ahmed said gave the company’s Singapore roadmap a “firm foundation” to build from.
Coinbase already employs roughly 70 people in Singapore across engineering, compliance, legal and institutional sales, with headcount expected to grow once the new hub is fully staffed, though the company hasn’t given specific hiring targets.
Its Asia-Pacific investment arm has also backed more than 18 Singapore-based Web3 startups to date.
Circle Launches Arc Mainnet With More Than 100 Institutional and Crypto Partners
Circle, the company behind USDC, has officially launched the public mainnet of Arc, a Layer 1 blockchain built specifically for financial markets, payments and AI-driven economic activity.
The network debuts with more than 100 institutional and ecosystem participants already on board, a notably large founding cohort for a brand-new chain.
What sets Arc apart structurally is that USDC itself functions as the network’s gas token, meaning transaction fees are paid directly in the stablecoin rather than in a separate native cryptocurrency, a design choice meant to give users more predictable costs than most Layer 1 networks currently offer.
Circle says the network delivers sub-second finality and supports USDC, EURC and tokenized real-world assets.
The list of founding validators reads like a cross-section of traditional finance and crypto alike: BlackRock, Mastercard, Visa and Standard Chartered on the institutional side, alongside Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Aave and Uniswap representing crypto-native infrastructure.
Circle has also minted the full initial supply of 10 billion ARC tokens, though the company was careful to note this doesn’t confirm a public token launch is imminent.
ARC is intended to eventually support network security and governance, particularly once Arc transitions from Proof of Authority to Proof of Stake, a shift planned for 2027. Whether Arc becomes a genuine hub for on-chain trading activity, the way Robinhood Chain has, is the open question much of the industry is now watching.
Robinhood Partners With Crypto.com and OG.com to Expand Prediction Markets
Robinhood has struck a partnership with Crypto.com and OG.com that expands where it routes prediction-market contracts, starting with football.
As of September 8, Robinhood began sending a selection of football event contracts to Crypto.com’s CFTC-regulated derivatives arm and the separate, trader-focused OG.com platform.
There’s an equity component here too. Robinhood Markets will receive equity stakes in Crypto.com and OG.com once OG.com spins off as an independent platform, priced in line with Citadel Securities’ recent investment in Crypto.com at a $20 billion valuation. That’s a meaningfully deeper tie than a typical routing agreement.
The volume behind this move is substantial: 13.6 billion event contracts traded through Robinhood in the second quarter alone, more than 5 billion during the World Cup, and over 45 billion total since the product launched roughly two years ago.
Robinhood will keep routing contracts to other venues too, including Kalshi, ForecastEx, and Rothera, its own joint venture with Susquehanna International Group.
JB Mackenzie, who runs futures and prediction markets at Robinhood, said routing to multiple venues helps build “a stronger, more diverse and resilient marketplace,” tying the timing directly to football season and the approaching midterms.
Kris Marszalek, founder and CEO of both Crypto.com and OG.com, called it the start of a deeper partnership, with ambitions to make OG.com “the most liquid venue globally” for prediction markets before expanding into futures and perpetuals.
Cardano Foundation Joins Mastercard’s Crypto Partner Program
The Cardano Foundation has joined Mastercard’s Crypto Partner Program, entering specifically through its Blockchains track. A signal that Cardano is angling for a genuine role in mainstream payment infrastructure rather than staying confined to crypto-native use cases.
The Foundation described the move on X as “another step toward connecting public blockchain infrastructure with the way money moves globally.”
The scope centers on three interconnected areas: cross-border money movement, B2B transactions, and settlement, all places where legacy correspondent banking tends to be slow and expensive, and where blockchain rails are frequently pitched as offering real advantages in speed and transparency.
Stablecoins sit at the center of the plan, functioning as the practical bridge between blockchain settlement speed and the price stability institutions actually need to use these rails for real transactions.
Being included in Mastercard’s Blockchains track puts Cardano alongside other infrastructure providers working on similar problems, which matters less as a symbolic win and more as a genuine testing ground.
Mastercard’s reach into global payment networks gives any technology piloted through this program a far higher-stakes proving ground than a typical industry trial would offer.
For Cardano specifically, this kind of positioning speaks to a broader challenge the network has faced for a while: demonstrating real utility beyond trading and speculation. Landing inside a Mastercard-run initiative focused on payments and stablecoins is a fairly direct attempt to close that gap.
Disclaimer
In line with the Trust Project guidelines, please note that the information provided on this page is not intended to be and should not be interpreted as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other form of advice. It is important to only invest what you can afford to lose and to seek independent financial advice if you have any doubts. For further information, we suggest referring to the terms and conditions as well as the help and support pages provided by the issuer or advertiser. MetaversePost is committed to accurate, unbiased reporting, but market conditions are subject to change without notice.
About The Author
Alisa, a dedicated journalist at the MPost, specializes in crypto, AI, investments, and the expansive realm of Web3. With a keen eye for emerging trends and technologies, she delivers comprehensive coverage to inform and engage readers in the ever-evolving landscape of digital finance.
More articles
Alisa, a dedicated journalist at the MPost, specializes in crypto, AI, investments, and the expansive realm of Web3. With a keen eye for emerging trends and technologies, she delivers comprehensive coverage to inform and engage readers in the ever-evolving landscape of digital finance.
