Ethena’s USDe has made waves, hitting a $10 billion market cap in just 500 days, making it the fastest stablecoin to reach this milestone.

This synthetic dollar, issued by Ethena Labs, surged 92% in 30 days, driven by the GENIUS Act, which banned yields on regulated stablecoins, pushing capital toward DeFi-native options like USDe that offer lucrative yields (10-19% APY).

USDe’s delta-neutral strategy, backed by crypto assets and hedged positions, contrasts with algorithmic failures like Terra’s UST, though skeptics still warn of potential fragility in bear markets. Its rise to the third-largest stablecoin, overtaking DAI, reflects strong institutional and retail demand, boosted by partnerships like Aave and Anchorage Digital.

However, regulatory hurdles, like MiCA compliance in Europe, and comparisons to UST’s collapse highlight risks. ENA, Ethena’s governance token, also jumped over 100% in a month, fueled by whale accumulation and $5M daily buybacks.

USDe overtaking DAI to become the third-largest stablecoin (behind USDT and USDC) underscores a competitive landscape. Its synthetic, delta-neutral model—backed by crypto assets and hedged positions—offers a novel approach, challenging fiat-backed and over-collateralized stablecoins.

However, this also raises questions about long-term stability, given historical failures like Terra’s UST. The GENIUS Act and Europe’s MiCA framework highlight growing regulatory scrutiny on stablecoins. USDe’s unregulated, yield-generating model thrives in this gap, but future regulations could force Ethena to adapt or face restrictions, shaping how stablecoins evolve to balance compliance and innovation.

Partnerships with platforms like Aave and Anchorage Digital, alongside whale activity and ENA token buybacks ($5M daily), show strong market confidence. This suggests stablecoins like USDe are bridging retail and institutional use cases, from trading to yield farming, expanding blockchain’s utility.

Despite its success, USDe’s synthetic model draws comparisons to UST, raising concerns about sustainability in volatile markets. A bear market could test its hedging strategy, potentially shaking confidence in similar stablecoins and affecting DeFi’s credibility.

How Stablecoins Are Redefining Blockchain

Stablecoins like USDT, USDC, and USDe provide price stability, making them practical for transactions, remittances, and DeFi applications. They enable blockchain to function as a reliable financial system, reducing volatility risks associated with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Stablecoins are the lifeblood of DeFi, powering lending, borrowing, and yield farming on protocols like Aave, Curve, and Ethena. USDe’s high yields exemplify how stablecoins incentivize liquidity provision, driving DeFi’s growth to over $100 billion in total value locked (TVL) as of 2025.

By enabling low-cost, borderless transactions, stablecoins democratize access to financial services. For instance, USDe’s integration with DeFi platforms allows users in underbanked regions to earn yields or hedge against local currency inflation, redefining blockchain as a tool for financial empowerment.

Stablecoins offer an alternative to centralized banking systems, bypassing intermediaries with faster, cheaper transactions. USDe’s synthetic model, for example, competes with traditional savings accounts by offering higher returns, pushing banks to innovate or lose market share.

Stablecoins are forcing regulators to rethink monetary policy. Their growth—USDT and USDC alone hold over $150 billion in market cap—raises concerns about systemic risks, prompting laws like the GENIUS Act. Blockchain’s role as a regulatory battleground is redefining how governments interact with decentralized systems.

USDe’s delta-neutral, crypto-backed approach highlights stablecoin innovation beyond fiat collateral (USDT/USDC) or over-collateralization (DAI). This diversification expands blockchain’s use cases but also introduces new risks, as seen with algorithmic stablecoins like UST.

HoneyCoin Raises $4.9M to Transform Stablecoin-Powered Payments Across Africa and Global Markets

HoneyCoin, a Kenyan crypto-powered fintech platform, has announced the raise of $4.9 million funding round led by the global venture firm Flourish Ventures.

The funding round included a dynamic mix of regional and global investors, which include: Visa Ventures, TLcom Capital, Stellar Development Foundation, Lava, Musha Ventures, 4DX Ventures, and Antler.

HoneyCoin will use the funds raised to accelerate the scale of operations, expand its product suite, and bring on new senior hires to strengthen its position as a prominent player in the payments industry.

Commenting on the raise, David Nandwa, Founder and CEO of HoneyCoin, said,

“Our mission is to build the operating system for money, how it’s moved, held, and collected, regardless of medium or geography. Just as Apple redefined computing and Visa transformed global commerce, we believe financial infrastructure is undergoing another once-in-a-generation shift. This raise enables us to lead that transformation, across Africa and other global markets, by building resilient, interoperable infrastructure for the future of finance.”

Also commenting, Flourish Ventures Principal  Efayomi Carr said,

“We first backed HoneyCoin in 2021 based on David’s technical expertise and regulatory vision,” said Efayomi Carr, Principal at Flourish Ventures. “Since then, he’s built a licensed, profitable, and high-growth infrastructure platform powering nearly 300 financial institutions and processing billions in transactions annually. This follow-on investment reflects our deep confidence in HoneyCoin’s results to date and potential to lead the next generation of compliant, blockchain-enabled finance across Africa.”

Founded in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic by David Nandwa, who became one of Africa’s youngest fintech CEOs at just 19, HoneyCoin began with a simple yet ambitious vision: to build an operating system for moving, managing, and spending money that aligns with both today’s digital economy and the financial systems of the future.

Initially targeting creators and freelancers with what Nandwa described as “Gumroad for Africa, but with fiat and stablecoins,” HoneyCoin quickly realized the market potential extended far beyond that niche. In 2021, the company launched its consumer app, setting its sights on a broader audience while maintaining its mission of bridging traditional finance and blockchain infrastructure.

The crypto-powered fintech platform addresses long-standing inefficiencies in global financial infrastructure, particularly for businesses in frontier markets, by providing a unified, stablecoin-compatible platform for collections, treasury management, settlements, and FX management. By building a stablecoin-based liquidity engine and bypassing fragmented rails, HoneyCoin offers businesses instant or same-day settlements, compared to the traditional 4–7 business day timelines.

The journey has been anything but easy. HoneyCoin has faced challenges which includes frozen funds from a banking partner, sophisticated fraud attempts, prolonged pauses on card payments due to card testing attacks, and fierce competition from well-funded rivals. Despite these hurdles, the company has emerged as one of the fastest-growing full-stack payment orchestration platforms serving both consumers and enterprises.

Today, it processes over $150 million in monthly transaction volume, serves millions of end-users, and operates in more than 45 countries across four continents. Licensed in key jurisdictions including the US, Canada, the EU, and major African markets, the company has built direct integrations with banks and telecom operators.

Also, strategic partnerships with MoneyGram, UBA Bank, and Stripe have further strengthened its infrastructure. High-growth businesses and fintechs such as Cedar Money, TerraPay, and Jiji already rely on HoneyCoin’s platform for payments and treasury operations. Its FXHub enables customers to buy and sell up to 49 currencies at competitive rates, giving CFOs and finance teams the tools for seamless global treasury management backed by real-time data.

With this new capital, HoneyCoin plans to grow its team, expand licensure and compliance functions, and continue evolving its API-first product suite for developers, PSPs, and enterprises looking for compliant access to stablecoin settlement rails and FX liquidity.

In a move that would redraw the map of search and browser economics, Perplexity AI has lodged an unsolicited $34.5 billion bid for Google’s Chrome browser, CNBC confirmed Tuesday.

The offer, roughly double Perplexity’s most recent public valuation stretch last month, signals how high strategic stakes have climbed in the race to control the user gateway to the internet.

Perplexity, best known for an AI-first search experience that delivers short answers and links back to source material, has moved aggressively in recent months. The company launched its own AI-powered browser, Comet, and was valued at roughly $18 billion in July after an earlier $14 billion extension. Several investors have reportedly agreed to back the Chrome proposal, the startup says—an indication the bid is at least plausibly financeable.

Since its 2008 debut, Chrome has become the dominant consumer gateway to the web on both desktop and mobile, and it funnels enormous volumes of usage and behavioral data to Google’s search and advertising systems. Control of Chrome would give any owner extremely valuable distribution advantages: the ability to influence default search settings, integrate novel search experiences, and surface services at the moment millions of users open a browser.

That is exactly what makes the bid consequential. For Perplexity, acquiring Chrome would rapidly remove the single largest obstacle to scaling its search product: distribution. Rather than trying to win users by incremental product improvements or partnerships, Perplexity would inherit the platform that shapes how people begin their online journeys.

Regulatory backdrop and the DOJ case

Perplexity’s acquisition offer comes against the backdrop of the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust litigation, which concluded that Google holds an illegal monopoly in general internet search. As part of proposed relief, the DOJ asked a court to require Google to divest Chrome, arguing that the browser is the “critical search access point” that entrenches Google’s dominance.

“To remedy these harms, the [Initial Proposed Final Judgment] requires Google to divest Chrome, which will permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet,” the DOJ wrote.

The company has decried the remedy as overbroad, and the litigation is far from settled.

This backdrop explains why Chrome is suddenly available as an acquisition target in the headlines at all: divestiture is one of the DOJ’s suggested fixes. But any sale will be examined not only by Google’s corporate leadership but by regulators in multiple jurisdictions, who will assess whether a transfer of Chrome would cure or worsen the competitive harms the DOJ identified.

Chrome’s acquisition will drastically change Perplexity’s fortune. The upside includes immediate scale, near-unrivaled distribution, and the chance to bake its AI answers into the user flow that currently feeds Google search results and ad inventory. Owning Chrome would give Perplexity leverage to set a default search engine and to design novel interactions that prioritize AI-driven answers over link lists — a business model that would threaten the ad-driven economics of incumbent search providers.

Chrome is a linchpin in Google’s data, services, and advertising ecosystem. Selling Chrome would mean parting with a major user touchpoint that feeds Google Search and ad targeting.

What the deal would require — and the risks

However, in the unlikely circumstance Perplexity musters financing and Google is willing to negotiate, the transaction would be technically and politically fraught. Chrome is built on an open-source engine (Chromium) and deeply integrated with Google’s services and Android distribution agreements. Splitting Chrome from Google’s broader ecosystem while preserving a smooth user experience is a substantial engineering task.

Regulators will also scrutinize buyers. A sale that merely hands Chrome to a single, fast-growing search provider could be viewed as trading one concentrated control point for another. The DOJ and international competition authorities would evaluate not only whether a divestiture curbs Google’s dominance but also whether it creates a new gatekeeper with similar power.