Visa adds Monad, Elizabeth Warren vows scrutiny of prediction markets, and more

The following article is adapted from The Block's newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.

Happy Tuesday! Bitcoin has fallen to around $73,500 as higher-than-expected CPI data raised expectations of a Fed rate hike in December.

In today's newsletter, Visa adds Monad to its stablecoin settlement network options, Elizabeth Warren vows scrutiny of prediction markets and Trump family crypto ventures, MARA sells 13,597 BTC to pay off loans, and more.

Meanwhile, Alta raises $47.5 million in a Series A to build a blockchain for financial institutions, and TON Strategy earns $13.1 million from GRAM staking in Q3.

P.S. Don't forget to check out The Latent, our sister website covering AI. Get The Latent Daily here and all other The Block newsletters here. Also, follow The Block and The Latent on X for more updates.

Visa adds Monad to stablecoin settlement network options

Visa has added the Monad blockchain as a settlement option for its stablecoin program, allowing participating issuers and acquirers to settle payments through the network.

• Monad joins several blockchains already supported by Visa, including Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana, Stellar, Base, Polygon, Canton, Circle's Arc and Tempo. Visa announced support for the latter five in April.
• The Monad Foundation said blockchain settlement allows funds to move on weekends and holidays, compared with traditional card settlement, which operates on a five-business-day banking schedule.
• Monad is also developing a privacy feature called Private Settlement, expected to launch in the coming months. The feature will allow institutions to keep sensitive transaction details private while sharing them with auditors or regulators when needed.
• Visa reported an annualized stablecoin settlement run rate of $20 billion as of September 2026, up more than 15 times year over year. It also had more than 225 stablecoin-linked card programs operating globally.

Elizabeth Warren vows scrutiny of prediction markets, Trump family crypto ventures as Senate Banking chair

Sen. Elizabeth Warren plans to increase scrutiny of prediction markets and the Trump family's crypto businesses when she becomes chair of the Senate Banking Committee in January, following Democrats' victory in last week's midterm elections.

• A Warren aide said her priorities will include affordability, artificial intelligence, prediction markets, a potential financial crisis and accountability. The aide warned that Trump family crypto businesses, administration officials and Wall Street executives should prepare to answer difficult questions.
• Warren has previously called for investigations into Trump's memecoin and alleged conflicts involving World Liberty Financial. She has also questioned Kalshi and Polymarket over election betting and insider trading concerns, with her aide saying she wants to end the lack of oversight in prediction markets.

MARA posts $634 million Q3 net profit on bitcoin gains, sells 13,597 BTC to pay off loans

Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings reported a third-quarter net profit of $634.4 million, up from $123.1 million a year earlier, even as revenue fell 35% to $164.2 million. The profit was largely driven by nearly $885 million in gains on its digital assets and bitcoin receivables.

• After the quarter ended, MARA sold 13,597 bitcoin for around $1.1 billion and used $750 million of the proceeds to fully repay its bitcoin-backed loans. The company has reduced its total debt by 37% since the beginning of the year to $1.4 billion.
• MARA is also expanding into AI infrastructure and high-performance computing. The company said it is shifting its focus toward securing customer leases and generating free cash flow from its infrastructure and energy assets.

Coinbase, Kalshi and Payward back CFTC in lawsuit over single-stock perp futures

Coinbase, Kalshi, Kraken parent Payward, DRW Holdings, Jump Trading and Paradigm have asked a federal court for permission to file a brief supporting the CFTC's authority to regulate single-stock perpetual futures in the U.S.

• The move follows a lawsuit by the Capital Markets Alliance, whose members include Cboe and Citadel Securities, seeking to overturn the CFTC's approval of the products. The group argues that equity perps should be treated as security-based swaps rather than futures regulated by the CFTC.
• Coinbase, Kalshi and Payward submitted applications to list perpetual futures tied to U.S. stocks, which were deemed approved on Nov. 2. The firms argue that the SEC was involved in the regulatory process from the beginning and that the products should remain available under the existing futures framework.

MEGA commits $30 million to new products, starting with AI inference

The MegaETH Foundation has rebranded as MEGA and committed $30 million from its existing treasury to develop new products, starting with an AI inference market planned for December. All new products will run on the MegaETH network.

• MegaETH co-founder Shuyao Kong said the team is holding back details about how the inference market will work until the December launch. She added that developers will be the target customers.

In the next 24 hours

• No major U.S. economic events are scheduled for Wednesday.
• European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Executive Board member Piero Cipollone are scheduled to speak on Wednesday.
• Allora (ALLO), Aptos (APT), and io.net (IO) are among the tokens scheduled to unlock on Wednesday.

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