Top Crypto Partnerships At The Start Of July 2026: Stripe, Visa, BlackRock, Binance And More

The first week of July brought another wave of partnerships showing how crypto is weaving itself into mainstream finance, payments, and even global sports. From Kraken’s presence at the FIFA World Cup to BlackRock’s tokenization push and Stripe’s support for a new stablecoin standard, the week’s announcements reflected a common theme: collaboration. Here’s a roundup of the biggest crypto partnerships announced during July’s opening week and what they could mean for the industry.

World Cup 2026 and Kraken in for a Milestone Partnership

Kraken’s partnership with FIFA has arrived at a fitting moment. As the 2026 World Cup entered its Round of 32 on July 2, the exchange became the first crypto platform ever to hold an official sponsorship role at football’s biggest tournament. It’s a milestone that highlights how far the industry has come, with crypto now appearing alongside some of the world’s most recognizable global brands.

The action wasn’t limited to the pitch. While fans watched Spain take on Austria, Portugal face Croatia, and Switzerland meet Algeria, crypto markets were reacting in real time. Fan tokens linked to national teams saw trading activity surge as results, standout performances, and tournament expectations drove speculation. Portugal’s token, in particular, attracted attention ahead of its knockout clash, while Argentina’s remained one of the most actively traded assets throughout the competition.

Much of that activity flowed through the Chiliz ecosystem and its Socios platform, which powers fan tokens for both clubs and national teams. Every spike in trading naturally increased engagement across the network, further tying Chiliz’s performance to major sporting events rather than crypto market cycles alone.

Prediction markets also emerged as one of the tournament’s biggest crypto success stories, with billions of dollars wagered on match outcomes. Still, the excitement comes with a reminder that fan tokens remain highly speculative. Prices can swing sharply after a single result, meaning the same match that sends supporters celebrating can leave traders nursing heavy losses overnight.

Ripple Banking Partner Powers X Money Rollout as Crypto Speculation Builds

X has officially begun rolling out X Money to a limited group of Premium+ users, marking another step toward Elon Musk’s vision of turning the platform into an all-in-one financial app. The new service introduces a digital wallet, peer-to-peer payments, a Visa debit card, and cash balances that can earn yield. For now, however, everything runs on traditional banking infrastructure rather than cryptocurrency.

The backbone of the service is Cross River Bank, Ripple’s long-time banking partner. The bank manages customer deposits, payment processing, card issuance, and the X Cash Sweep Program, which offers eligible users up to $10 million in FDIC insurance. Because Cross River has worked with Ripple since 2014 and has used XRP Ledger technology for certain payment services, the announcement quickly sparked speculation across the XRP community.

Many users suggested the partnership could eventually open the door to blockchain-based features, including faster settlements, international transfers, or stablecoin payments. At this stage, though, those ideas remain speculative. Neither X nor Cross River has announced plans to integrate XRP or any other cryptocurrency into X Money.

The launch also follows X’s expansion of Smart Cashtags, giving users richer real-time charts for assets including Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Dogecoin, and several major stocks. Meanwhile, Ripple continues pushing for clearer U.S. crypto regulation, recently encouraging lawmakers to support the CLARITY Act while emphasizing the need for stronger consumer protections and responsible innovation.

Robinhood and Bitget Wallet Team Up to Expand Onchain Stock Token Trading

Robinhood Crypto and Bitget Wallet have teamed up to bring tokenized stocks to a much wider audience, giving millions of users access to traditional equities through blockchain infrastructure. The partnership makes Bitget Wallet one of the first self-custodial wallets to integrate Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum Layer 2 network designed specifically for tokenized real-world assets.

Once the rollout is complete, Bitget Wallet’s 90 million users will be able to trade more than 90 stock tokens directly from their wallets without opening a brokerage account. The lineup includes major companies such as NVIDIA, Apple, and Google, alongside tokenized index products like the Invesco QQQ. Robinhood Chain, built using Arbitrum Orbit technology, is also open to third-party developers, exchanges, and lending platforms, allowing a broader financial ecosystem to develop around tokenized assets.

Robinhood said the launch reflects its long-term goal of making financial markets more accessible, highlighting that “financial system should work for everyone” as the guiding principle behind expanding into onchain infrastructure. Bitget Wallet echoed that vision, arguing the partnership removes barriers such as geography, limited market hours, and brokerage requirements while bringing self-custody into the experience from day one.

The collaboration is another sign that tokenized real-world assets are moving beyond experimentation. Instead of treating blockchain as a separate financial system, firms are increasingly using it as the infrastructure layer for familiar investment products, bringing traditional markets closer to the onchain economy.

Chainalysis and South Korean Police to Strengthen Crypto Crime Investigations 

Chainalysis has signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korea’s Korean National Police Agency (KNPA), formalizing a partnership aimed at improving the country’s ability to investigate crypto-related crime. Although the two sides have worked together for several years, the June 10 agreement establishes a more structured collaboration focused on training, certification, and blockchain investigation techniques.

Under the partnership, KNPA investigators will gain access to Chainalysis’ educational programs and practical investigative tools designed to help trace illicit fund flows across multiple blockchain networks. The goal is to strengthen long-term institutional expertise rather than respond to a single category of crime.

Chainalysis Country Director Ryan Kwon emphasized that the initiative extends beyond concerns surrounding North Korean cyber activity, describing “building institutional capability” as the broader objective. The agreement covers everything from state-sponsored attacks to scams and fraud targeting everyday investors.

The timing isn’t coincidental. State-affiliated crypto theft hit $578 million in April alone, driven largely by attacks on Kelp DAO and Drift Protocol, and CrowdStrike’s research put 2025’s total state-linked losses at $2 billion, a 51% jump from the year before. Chainalysis has already proven useful here: it helped South Korean police unwind an international hacking ring last September that had stolen roughly $30 million, an investigation that started domestically and eventually traced back to Thailand.

The MoU also follows the launch of a new domestic task force, the Money Laundering Eradication Task Force, run out of the Economic Crime Investigation Division to coordinate enforcement on virtual-asset crime.

Binance and Anchorage Digital separate custody from trading for institutional clients

Binance announced on June 30 that it’s bringing Anchorage Digital into its institutional Triparty Banking network, and the pitch is a familiar one in post-FTX crypto: stop making the exchange hold everything at once. Anchorage becomes the first crypto exchange partner plugged into Atlas, its institutional settlement platform, giving eligible clients a way to trade on Binance’s liquidity without depositing assets there directly.

The mechanics are straightforward. Institutions pledge collateral — crypto, cash, yield-bearing USD accounts, or tokenized money market funds like BlackRock’s BUIDL, Circle’s USYC, and Franklin Templeton’s iBENJI — while Anchorage holds it in segregated custody and Binance extends trading access against it. Binance said the goal is to “give institutional clients a custody-separated way to trade,” cutting the need to pre-fund exchange accounts and letting collateral keep working instead of sitting idle.

Binance first piloted this triparty structure back in 2023, calling it the industry’s first arrangement of its kind with an outside banking partner, and has widened it since, adding Swiss francs as eligible collateral last November. Anchorage brings something specific to the table: a federal bank charter from the OCC, the first crypto-native firm to get one, which matters to institutions that want custody that looks like the traditional finance they already trust. Binance is waiving fees on the service through the end of 2026 before moving to tiered pricing in 2027.

BlackRock and Ethena Expand Partnership to Advance Tokenized Treasury Markets

BlackRock is deepening its relationship with Ethena by expanding support for the protocol’s stablecoins across its Aladdin platform, a move that further connects traditional finance with blockchain-based infrastructure. The partnership is designed to give institutional investors faster access to tokenized U.S. Treasury products while reducing reliance on conventional market hours.

At the center of the collaboration is BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), one of the largest tokenized Treasury funds on the market. Through Securitize, Ethena will provide a $100 million liquidity facility that allows qualified investors to seamlessly exchange BUIDL fund tokens for stablecoins such as USDC and USDtb. The process enables capital to move around the clock instead of waiting for traditional settlement windows.

The integration also brings Ethena’s stablecoins, including the yield-generating USDe and reserve-backed USDtb, more deeply into Aladdin’s ecosystem. Because USDtb holds reserves primarily invested in the BUIDL fund, the partnership creates a closer link between tokenized government securities and blockchain-native liquidity.

BlackRock’s latest move reinforces its leadership in the rapidly growing tokenized real-world asset sector. Rather than building standalone crypto products, the asset manager is embedding blockchain infrastructure into tools institutions already rely on. As demand for tokenized Treasuries and stablecoins continues to grow, partnerships like this could make digital assets a more practical part of everyday institutional finance rather than a separate investment niche.

Stripe, Visa, Mastercard and Crypto Leaders Unite Behind Open USD Stablecoin

A broad coalition of payment companies, blockchain networks, and crypto firms has come together to support Open USD (OUSD), a new partner-governed stablecoin designed for business payments and onchain finance. Led by Open Standard, the initiative already includes more than 140 companies, with notable backers such as Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, BlackRock, Ripple, Aave, Crypto.com, Polygon, Solana, Stellar, and Ledger.

Unlike many existing stablecoins, OUSD is built around a shared governance model. Rather than being controlled by a single issuer, Open Standard will oversee the project while distributing much of its revenue back to participating partners. The goal is to create open infrastructure that businesses can use for payments, settlement, and other financial services across multiple blockchains.

The messaging across companies converged on a few themes: lower costs, interoperability, and business use over speculative trading. 

Stripe went furthest, committing to make Open USD the default stablecoin for businesses transacting on Stripe, with that feature “coming soon.” 

Mastercard framed its involvement around the idea that stablecoins need “trusted networks, broad participation, and industry collaboration” to actually work at scale, while Aave said the project reflects how many companies are now moving financial services on-chain entirely.

Support from networks including Solana, Polygon, Stellar, Plasma, and Aptos further expands the project’s reach. Together, the partnerships suggest OUSD is being positioned less as another competing stablecoin and more as shared financial infrastructure. If adoption follows through, it could become one of the industry’s most collaborative attempts to bridge traditional payments with blockchain-based finance.

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