Anchorage Digital Gobbles Up Mountain Protocol—Stablecoin Land Grab Accelerates

Crypto’s institutional darling makes power play for USDM issuer

Another day, another custody giant swallowing a stablecoin upstart. Anchorage Digital—the $3B-valued crypto custodian that somehow convinced regulators it’s ’not a bank’—just snapped up Mountain Protocol. Because nothing says ’decentralized future’ like consolidation among the usual suspects.

USDM gets a sugar daddy

The yield-bearing stablecoin now gets access to Anchorage’s institutional distribution channels. Expect Wall Street’s crypto-curious to start playing with Mountain’s ’compliant DeFi’ toys by Q3.

Regulators left playing whack-a-mole

While the OCC frets about bank charters, the real action’s in these backroom deals that recreate traditional finance’s power structures—just with blockchain buzzwords. How very 2021 of them.