The Edge Series: Market Intelligence #16 ✍️ @0xGeeGee and research augmented by Chaos AI 1. Crypto Treasury Companies: Nano Labs (MicroStrategy of BNB) $HYPE was under the spotlight last week, this week it's $BNB. @NanoLabsLtd, a Nasdaq publicly listed company, announced its intention to pivot to being a $BNB treasury company, with the first convertible bond issuance up to $500M and its intention to scale to $1B and acquire at least 5% of BNB's supply (around $5B). The stock clearly benefited from the news, riding the usual hype associated with CTC initiatives. However, later during the week, the stock went back to pre-announcement values, in one of the fastest rotations of this saga. @cz_binance and @binance commented saying that they are not directly involved in the initiative. 2. Stablecoins: Russia Circumventing Sanctions Through Ruble Stablecoin Earlier last week, the Financial Times reported on A7A5, a newly launched ruble-pegged stablecoin designed to facilitate large-scale cross-border payments for Russian users amid Western sanctions. Issued in February 2025 from Kyrgyzstan, A7A5 has moved approximately $9.3B through wallets linked to its dedicated exchange, Grinex, in its first four months of operation, with the reserves held in Promsvyazbank (a bank under US, UK, and EU sanctions). The ownership structure of the company is not particularly inspiring. However, the stablecoin claims to be regularly audited by @KrestonGlobal, a global auditing firm, with the last report, dated March 31st, 2025, claiming full coverage. A7A5 is available on @trondao and @ethereum and is fairly liquid ($4M on Ethereum). Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the ruble has depreciated quite steadily against main Western currencies, but has fully recovered in the last 12 months (however, zooming out, the ruble lost 80% of its value since the turn of the century). 3. Crypto in TradFi: OKX Considering IPO It was only February of this year when @okx settled its DOJ charges and agreed to pay $500M in fines. Now, OKX has not only re-entered the US market but is also considering an IPO in the U.S., according to its CMO. $OKB, the platform's token, reacted pretty well to the news, booking a 10% gain, before retracing much of its move. Currently, @coinbase is the only U.S. publicly listed exchange, with @Gemini, @krakenfx, and also moving towards an IPO in the United States. It is clear that the exchanges are being receptive to the risk-on sentiment related to crypto stocks (e.g., Circle post-IPO price action, and the multiple crypto treasury companies), a situation in stark contrast with crypto itself, where exchange tokens are generally perceived as somewhat of a "safe haven" in times of downturns. It's going to be particularly interesting to see the relationship between the OKB token, which alone is valued at $11.8B, and the future equity, as the "double ownership" issue is very common in crypto, even across DeFi platforms. 4. Stablecoins: EU Commission Says "Less MiCA" Earlier this year, the European Central Bank (ECB) and European Commission engaged in a significant disagreement regarding the adequacy of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation as it stands. In particular, while the ECB supports a rigid interpretation of MiCA and insists on further regulations being introduced, the Commission's stance is that not only are the current regulations enough, but they must be relaxed to avoid perpetuating U.S. dominance in this nascent market. The consequence of this stance is that the European Commission is going to support the interchangeability or fungibility between stablecoins minted outside of the EU and inside the EU, avoiding splitting stablecoin products into two different subcategories. This scenario was particularly worrisome for stablecoin issuers that would have had to treat the two in completely segregated and different manners. The decision comes at a time when appetite for Euro-denominated stablecoins is quite high, with the EURUSD pair frequently marking new local highs.