DeFi Just Got a Mastercard

No exchanges. No wallets. Just a card swipe into DeFi. PLUS: Cardano’s NIGHT airdrop, Ethereum upgrade plans, and EU stablecoin boom.

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Cryptopolitan News
June 25, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes

📬 Today’s Byte

• Mastercard just went on-chain

• Midnight is dropping tokens to 37M wallets

• Stablecoin adoption is rising fast across the EU

• Market-moving headlines

🧠 Mastercard just went on-chain

Chainlink is helping 3B Mastercard users buy crypto directly, here’s how and why it matters

A quiet revolution just happened in crypto and this time, it didn’t come from a new token, L2, or memecoin.

Mastercard and Chainlink have partnered to bring on-chain crypto purchases to over 3 billion Mastercard cardholders worldwide. That means people can now buy crypto like ETH or stablecoins, directly using their card, and receive it straight into a smart contract. No centralized exchanges. No middlemen. No off-chain detours.

So, what’s actually happening?

This isn’t just a simple checkout integration. It’s a multi-layered TradFi-to-DeFi bridge, powered by:

  • Mastercard: The world’s second-largest payment network, handling over $8 trillion annually

  • Zerohash: Handles compliance, custody, and fiat-to-crypto conversion

  • Shift4: Card processing infrastructure

  • Swapper Finance: The user-facing app

  • XSwap + Uniswap: Where the actual swaps happen on-chain

  • Chainlink: Oracles and automation to tie it all together

The platform is already live.

The Big Idea:

This is more than just an on-ramp. It’s infrastructure for mainstream crypto adoption. With this integration, users can:

  • Buy crypto directly into DeFi from their bank card

  • Skip centralized exchanges and custodians

  • Interact with real DeFi protocols, without touching a single line of code

Why now?

There’s growing pressure for traditional finance to offer real access to crypto — not just price exposure. Mastercard knows this. Chainlink knows this. And this partnership solves a problem that’s kept many users (and institutions) on the sidelines: complex onboarding.

❝

People want an easy, secure way to access digital assets. This is how we deliver that at scale.

 Raj Dhamodharan, EVP of Blockchain, Mastercard

 Why this matters:

  • Mastercard has 3B+ users across 210+ countries

  • Chainlink oracles already power $10T+ in on-chain value

  • This is DeFi infrastructure being embedded directly into global commerce

This also sets a precedent: future platforms might let users pay directly into DAOs, lend into DeFi protocols, or tokenize their assets, all with a card swipe.

 What this might effect:

  • Centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Binance

  • Crypto on-ramp startups

  • Custodial wallet apps that act as middlemen

It also potentially redefines crypto UX. Instead of teaching users to open wallets and swap tokens, this model meets them where they are, with a debit card and a familiar checkout flow.

USDT stablecoin issuer Tether is the second-largest shareholder in Juventus Football Club, trailing only Exor NV, the investment vehicle of Italy’s Agnelli family. This is the first time a major European football club has counted a crypto company among its top investors.

📊 Market Watch:

If you held BTC, ADA, ETH, or any of 8 major tokens, you probably qualified. Midnight Network, a zero-knowledge privacy chain tied to the Cardano ecosystem, is dropping its token, NIGHT, to users across eight blockchains. That includes Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, XRP, Avalanche, BNB Chain, and Basic Attention Token (BAT).

To qualify, all you needed was at least $100 worth of any of those assets in your wallet on June 11, 2025. And yes, the snapshot has already been taken, Charles Hoskinson confirmed it in a video.

This isn’t your typical web3 airdrop. It’s built to be wide, structured, and Sybil-resistant. Over 37 million wallets are expected to benefit.

Here’s the breakdown:

  • Total supply: 24 billion NIGHT tokens

  • Cardano holders get the biggest share: 50% (12B)

  • Bitcoin gets 20% (4.8B)

  • The rest — XRP, ETH, SOL, AVAX, BNB, BAT split the remaining 30%

  • Token values are pegged to CoinMarketCap prices at the time of the snapshot

Claiming starts in July and rolls out in three stages:

  1. Glacier Drop – You get your full allocation over a 60-day window

  2. Scavenger Mine – Missed the first round? You can still earn some tokens by completing small network tasks

  3. Lost & Found – A final shot to reclaim what’s left over the next four years

To keep things fair and avoid mass dumping, tokens unlock gradually — 25% every 90 days over a year. You can also wait out the full 360 days and claim everything at once.

This might be the first real multi-chain privacy token drop of its kind and it’s not just for the DeFi elite. If you’ve been holding any of these assets in a self-custody wallet, your NIGHT bag might already be secured.

Cardano is the big winner here, but Bitcoin and ETH users will still see solid allocations. Not surprisingly, ADA and other eligible tokens saw a price bump right after the announcement.

Barclays Bank is informing customers it will no longer allow debit or credit card payments to crypto exchanges, including Binance. The decision was disclosed earlier this week, following a June 23 decision from the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) targeting Binance Markets Limited.

⚖️ Regulation Watch:

Europe’s crypto scene took a hit last year when MiCA regulations kicked in, tightening the rules around stablecoin issuance and usage. But in 2025, the region is making a strong comeback.

New data shows that Europe now accounts for 34% of global stablecoin usage — more than double its 2024 share of 16%. North America still leads at 42%, but the growth in the EU shows that regulatory clarity may be finally paying off.

What’s fueling the rise?

  • The rollout of regulated USDC products across the EU

  • Stripe enabling stablecoin payments in 101 countries, expanding retail access

  • The growth of EURC, a euro-denominated stablecoin by Circle, now at $200M in supply

Interestingly, even as EURC gains traction, nearly 99.8% of stablecoin volume in Europe is still dollar-based, with most traders and businesses preferring USDC and USDT.

Meanwhile, Asia’s stablecoin usage has dropped sharply, falling from 33% in 2024 to just 12% now. Increased regulatory crackdowns, exchange freezes, and concerns around P2P scams have squeezed activity in key markets. A new licensing regime for stablecoin issuers will begin in Hong Kong this August, potentially creating further friction.

Where are stablecoins being used the most?

  • Still heavily used on centralized exchanges for trading pairs

  • But DeFi is catching up fast, with $17.9B in stablecoins locked across lending platforms and DEXs

  • Around $11.6B of that is in overcollateralized assets, mostly in the US and EU

Despite the growth, regulators globally are still pushing for tighter audits. More than 90% of circulating stablecoins are now backed by cash or near-cash assets, thanks to increased demand for transparency and proof-of-reserves.

Europe’s early MiCA “shock” may have caused some short-term slowdown, but it’s also setting the stage for sustainable, regulated growth in the stablecoin economy. And with EURC gaining ground and companies like Stripe and Circle pushing deeper into the EU, stablecoins may become a lot more common in day-to-day payments across the continent.

Ethereum may soon operate at double its current speed, following a proposal by core developer Barnabé Monnot to cut the network’s slot time in half, from 12 seconds to 6 seconds.

Market-moving headlines 🔥

The United States Treasury confirmed Wednesday that the federal budget deficit for May hit $316 billion, placing it among the top three largest monthly gaps ever recorded.

This comes right after April’s short-lived surplus, which was only made possible by a wave of tax payments that couldn’t hold off the spending flood.

Over $14 billion worth of Bitcoin options contracts are scheduled to expire on Deribit at 08:00 UTC on Friday, June 28. The options are one of the largest quarterly settlements this year and have already begun influencing sentiment and volatility expectations across crypto markets. 

TSMC Global Ltd., the overseas unit of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., said it plans to issue $10 billion of new stock to strengthen its forex hedging amid swings in the Taiwan dollar.

The pound is now sitting at a 3-year high, and everyone in the market is either panicking, pretending to be a prophet, or quietly adjusting spreadsheets hoping no one notices they got it wrong last quarter.

25th June

🇨🇳 China’s crackdown on mining

On June 25, 2021, China intensified its crypto mining crackdown—provoking a mass exodus of miners from its provinces like Sichuan and Inner Mongolia. Mining rigs were being sold off like scrap metal, as operators sought refuge in crypto-friendly regions like Texas and Kazakhstan .

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