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Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire defended USDC after Open Standard unveiled OUSD with more than 140 partner companies. Allaire argued that USDC's distribution, liquidity and licensing advantages are difficult to replicate. Circle's stock fell more than 17% on June 30, and DefiLlama showed USDC at $73.9 billion in market capitalization against USDT at $184.9 billion.

Taiwan's Legislative Yuan passed the Virtual Asset Service Act on June 30, creating a licensing framework for crypto platforms and stablecoin issuers. Stablecoin issuers must keep full reserves, use domestic financial institutions for segregated trust assets, undergo audits, and avoid paying holder returns. Existing AML-registered VASPs will have 12 months to apply for licenses and 21 months to obtain approval after the law takes effect. Illegal VASP operations or stablecoin issuance can bring up to 7 years in prison and a fine of up to NT$100 million.

Jefferies warned investors against buying Circle’s dip after CRCL rebounded 5% Wednesday following a 17% plunge. The Open USD consortium is backed by more than 140 firms, including Stripe, Coinbase, Visa, Mastercard and BlackRock. Jefferies said rising stablecoin competition could pressure USDC’s supply growth and market share.

Paribu launched DeFi access to Hyperliquid perpetuals and Polymarket prediction markets as the first regulated exchange to offer both inside a CEX interface. Paribu also opened a waitlist for stock trading. Paribu's brokerage arm has establishment authorization from Turkiye's Capital Markets Board and is awaiting an operating license.

Ethereum Institutional launched July 1 as an independent nonprofit after consolidating roughly a year of institutional engagement work from the Ethereum Foundation. The group said its founding team built more than 500 institutional relationships and ran a forum for executives from institutions with roughly $250 trillion in combined assets under management.