Spy Games Meets Crypto 🎮
The Iran–Israel conflict spills over into web3
In this week’s edition of The Context, we find the crypto connection to the Iran–Israel war, explain how Mastercard is joining the stablecoin race, and outline Goldman Sachs’s latest crypto investment.
[Spy Games 🕵️]
Three Israelis were arrested for allegedly spying for Iran, which paid them in cryptocurrency. The two countries are at war.
What Media Said 🧑💻:
One of the men took photos of high-profile targets, while the other had been digging up intel on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s future daughter-in-law before the war, reported Charlie Summers (The Times of Israel). Each task earned the men $500 in an unnamed cryptocurrency.
Israel is hip to crypto. Last week, Israeli hackers “drained roughly $90 million worth of crypto from Iranian exchange Nobitex, citing ties between the platform and Iranian intelligence services,” wrote Vince Dioquino (Decrypt).
PR Perspective 🔎:
On its surface, this is a straightforward espionage case. But the fact that payments were made in crypto in small, trackable amounts gives it broader implications: Expect this to boost demand for on-chain monitoring, forensics tools, and smart wallet filtering. There’s a messaging window here for firms that can frame themselves as crypto’s “security stack.”
[Mastercard HODLers 💳]
Mastercard announced it’s enabling multiple stablecoins—including Paxos’s USDG and PayPal’s PYUSD—across its credit card network.
What Media Said 🧑💻:
“Mastercard isn’t waiting for crypto companies to supplant its massive payment network,” said Ben Weiss (Fortune). “Instead, it’s joining them.” The company’s shares dropped more than 5% after the Senate passed stablecoin regulations, but it insists it isn’t late to the game.
These moves show Mastercard is “doubling down on stablecoins,” wrote Krisztian Sandor (CoinDesk). Other big companies and banks are also flocking to the $260B+ asset class, lured by the promise of faster, cheaper transactions than with traditional finance.
PR Perspective 🔎:
Every year, it seems, a crypto use case captures mainstream attention. There was DeFi summer, that one year NFTS got huge, and, more recently, memecoins. Stablecoins have been a key part of crypto for more than a decade, but now they’re a sensation. If you’re pitching media outlets, especially those outside of the crypto pubs, be ready to explain how your product relates to stables.
[Pure Gold, Man💰]
Digital Asset, the creator of layer-one blockchain Canton Network, announced it had scored a $135M investment led by DRW and Tradeweb, with participation from Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, and Citadel Securities.
What Media Said 🧑💻:
Digital Asset already sells crypto services to Goldman and other clients, which use Canton to place real-world assets like bonds onchain. With this funding, it wants to get more people using Canton, which is “designed for financial institutions to move assets and data around while meeting regulatory and privacy requirements,” wrote Ryan Browne (CNBC).
The names involved “prove that TradFi institutions are putting their money where their mouth is,” said Katherine Ross (Blockworks). Expect a “crypto-focused future for institutions.”
PR Perspective 🔎:
Digital Asset has been around since 2014 without becoming a big name with crypto-heads. That didn’t stop it from raising a huge amount of cash. In PR, as in all communications, it’s about finding and speaking to your audience, not getting publicity from folks who aren’t going to use your product. Target the media sources your demographic trusts.
[Tweet of The Week]
Credit - @litcapital.
Connect with YAP Global: Website, X & LinkedIn
The usual disclaimer: This newsletter collates the main themes and headlines of the week in DeFi/crypto/metaverse/Web3/NFT land and tries to provide unbiased context. It's aimed at anyone who wants to keep an eye on the space. It's put together by a team at YAP and doesn't contain any promotion of our clients (if one is mentioned, we'll flag that).
The team: Founder Samantha Yap and consulting editor Jeff Benson, Andrew Wickerson, Nathalie Larrea, Meghna Dembla, Samvidha Sharma, William Knight, Taylor Handler, Trisha Goswami and Shajar Qureshi. Your feedback is, as always, welcome. Ping us at thecontext@yapglobal.com. Old newsletters can be found here.
This newsletter is prepared by YAP Global, an international PR Consultancy focusing on helping cryptocurrency, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) and brands through impactful storytelling. Find out more about us here.