Opinion by: Megan Knab, CEO, Franklin Payroll

There are few historical examples of such a massive about-face for an industry, from banks debanking crypto businesses to now embracing stablecoins. If you talk to most crypto startup founders or companies with crypto on the balance sheet, they will all have war stories about finding, applying for and maintaining bank accounts. 

Over the past three years, over half of debanking complaints have been lodged against four American banks — Bank of America, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Citibank. Now, as the policies that discriminated against the crypto industry, like “Operation Chokepoint 2.0” and the recision of controversial accounting rule SAB 121, have been repealed, a new openness to blockchain technology from the finance sector is possible. 

It is imperative that the banking industry stop shunning crypto and start — at least understanding it — to stay competitive. How stablecoins are deployed will separate the banking winners and losers. 

From debanking to stablecoins 

Of course, stablecoins are not a new concept. For years, large institutions like JPMorgan and Santander have experimented with stablecoins and blockchains. Those experiments were around small functions like internal treasury reconciliation and interbank settlement. Much of this was also on private blockchains created by those banks. Implementing digital dollars on private chains, however, misses out on the core innovation of stablecoins.

While the use case of stablecoins for international remittances is clear, we are just scratching the surface of the power of stablecoins on public networks. For example, stablecoins eradicate unauthorized payment disputes and enable far faster pay cycles. 

Payroll payments are also complex. Payday is a web of thousands of automated clearing houses, wires, comma-separated values and PDFs. The programmability of stablecoins enables companies to create efficiency among all these data structures, processing times, reconciliations and paycheck reporting. 

Many smaller banks are just now waking up to the opportunity to incorporate permissionless, public network stablecoins into their workflows. Similar to how many businesses started to investigate how AI might change their businesses with the 2022 release of ChatGPT, so too are banks needing to look at how stablecoins will upend money movement.

 Recently, Custodia Bank issued its own stablecoin, Avit, on Ethereum. Custodia’s users can access quick, cheap banking services that are hard to beat. This is an excellent example of implementation for other financial institutions to follow.

Stablecoin adoption is increasing as the tech keeps improving

Active stablecoin wallets increased from 19.6 million in February 2024 to over 30 million in February 2025, according to Artemis and Dune. US President Donald Trump hopes to have stablecoin legislation on his desk by August 2025. Wyoming already did so in late March 2025.

Recent: Mastercard links with Circle, Paxos for merchant stablecoin payments

Stablecoin infrastructure has improved significantly, and there is increased confidence in the security of stablecoins. 91% of the supply of stablecoins is fiat-backed, and only 8.5% are backed by collateralized crypto assets. Riskier algorithmic stablecoins have gone out of vogue.

Incremental changes also make it easier for non-crypto businesses to use stablecoins. There are now simple solutions for many of the original UX problems with stablecoins.

Additionally, more assets are moving onchain. Using stablecoins on public networks like Ethereum, payment companies will be better prepared to serve the future financial system. It’s not just stablecoins that are updating the financial system, either. Earlier this year, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said on Squawk Box he wants the SEC to “rapidly approve the tokenization of bonds and stocks.”

For banks looking for a competitive advantage in a world of powerful fintechs, shifting interest rates and lower consumer savings, using the power of stablecoins to improve their products and their internal operations might be the most powerful decision they make. 

Opinion by: Megan Knab, CEO, Franklin Payroll.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Key points:

Bitcoin refuses to budge from a narrow range as traders consider the likely breakout direction.

Price discovery is keenly awaited, but downside predictions include levels further toward $90,000.

BTC/USD has delivered highly patterned moves since its rebound began in April.

Bitcoin (BTC) kept traders guessing at the May 16 Wall Street open as consolidation sparked both bullish and bearish forecasts.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

“Significant” liquidity builds around BTC price

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD shuttling between $103,000 and $104,000 on the day.

Despite beating expectations, the latest US macroeconomic data in the form of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) prints on May 13 and 15, respectively, failed to exert a strong influence on short-term price behavior.

Instead, traders focused on Bitcoin’s latest consolidation phase less than 10% away from new all-time highs.

“$BTC Has been doing roughly the same thing since the April lows. Move up, tight consolidation, new leg up,” popular trader Daan Crypto Trades wrote in part of ongoing X analysis. 

“Keep an eye on this local range and wait for a breakout to either direction would be my recommendation.”BTC/USD 6-hour chart. Source: Daan Crypto Trades/X

A separate post noted areas of thick liquidity on either side of the price, potentially providing near-term targets should BTC/USD exit its narrow range.

$BTC Liquidation Map showing a large cluster at $105K-$106K and a ton sitting between $99K-$103K.

This makes sense as these are the highs/lows of the current tiny range we’re consolidating in for the past week or so.

Lately, we’ve seen a lot of similar consolidations and we… pic.twitter.com/y387V1WzsC

— Daan Crypto Trades (@DaanCrypto) May 16, 2025

“Notice the massive concentration of long liquidations clustered tightly just below the current price, particularly around 10280-10300? This represents a significant pool of liquidity,” fellow trading TheKingfisher continued. 

“Shorts are more spread out higher up. This imbalance makes the zone below a key area to watch. It could act as a price magnet, or a trigger point for cascading liquidations if price moves down.”Bitcoin exchange order book liquidity data. Source: TheKingfisher/X

Another popular trader, Crypto Caesar, suggested that a range breakout could run deeper and take Bitcoin further below the $100,000 mark.

“If price breaks and holds above this zone, we could see new crazy highs,” he told X followers, referencing a bullish crossover on the weekly moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) indicator. 

“However: a rejection right here might lead to a pullback toward $90K.”BTC/USDT 1-week chart with MACD data. Source: Crypto Caesar/X

A rinse-and-repeat Bitcoin breakout?

Like Daan Crypto Trades, analyst Kevin Svenson was keen to see a continuation of the stop-start rebound in place since April.

Related: Bitcoin hitting $220K ‘reasonable’ in 2025, says gold-based forecast

Analyzing 4-hour timeframes on the day, he delivered his next upside BTC/USD target well inside price discovery.

“So far, the measured move extrapolations of each leg up in this run have been pinpoint accurate,” he wrote.

“If this trend continues, if this pattern holds, the next target is $115,000.”BTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: Kevin Svenson/X

Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on a variety of BTC price predictions now in force, with commentators overwhelmingly favoring upside next.

Zooming out, $1 million per coin may become reality in three years’ time or even sooner, according to former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Shares of luxury watchmaker Top Win surged more than 60% in premarket trading after the company said it would adopt a Bitcoin accumulation strategy and had changed its name to AsiaStrategy.

In a May 16 announcement, AsiaStrategy said it is partnering with Sora Ventures to adopt a Bitcoin (BTC) treasury strategy. Sora previously partnered with Metaplanet in 2024 to create Japan’s first corporate Bitcoin treasury.

The stock market took immediate notice of the announcement. Top Win stock closed the trading day at $7.50 on May 15, but traded at $12.12 in premarket at the time of writing — a jump of over 60%.

Top Win share price. Source: Google Finance

AsiaStrategy’s luxury watchmaking business will continue alongside its Bitcoin accumulation strategy, rather than a full pivot.

Related: Jim Chanos takes opposing bets on Bitcoin and Strategy

The announcement comes a day after a Bahrain-based, listed catering company with a $24.2 million market cap adopted a Bitcoin treasury strategy in partnership with investment firm 10X Capital. Both companies are seemingly set to follow a path similar to the top corporate BTC holder Strategy (previously known as MicroStrategy).

Sora Ventures joins company board

Jason Fang, the founder and managing partner of Sora Ventures, will join AsiaStrategy as a member of its board. He will serve as co-CEO at the firm alongside Tony Ngai (Kwan Ngai), who served as the CEO and director at Top Win until now.

Fang started his career at Fenbushi Capital in 2016 and later founded Sora Ventures in 2018. Under his leadership, Sora Ventures invested in decentralized finance (DeFi), game finance (GameFi), social finance (SocialFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). More recently, the company shifted its focus to decentralized science (DeSci) and the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Related: Strategy will beat all public equities with Bitcoin, analyst says

Watchmaker joins Bitcoin treasury trend

When US-based business intelligence company Strategy pivoted to accumulating Bitcoin in 2020, it was the beginning of a trend that would slowly pick up pace. BitcoinTreasuries.NET data shows that the company now holds 568,840 BTC worth nearly $59 billion, over 2.7% of all Bitcoin that will ever be mined.

Metaplanet chose to adopt the same strategy last year, and BitcoinTreasuries.NET reports that they now hold 6,796 BTC worth over $704 million. Last week, the company announced that it is raising more funds through another $21.25 million bond issue to expand its Bitcoin treasury.

Magazine: Rise of MicroStrategy clones, Asia dominates crypto adoption: Asia Express 2024 review