Good Morning, Asia. Here’s what’s making news in the markets:

Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during U.S. hours and an overview of market moves and analysis. For a detailed overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.

South Korea has long been known for its outsized influence on altcoin markets, from the XRP mania that drove a 400% rally last year to the present-day obsession with a token that proudly calls itself USELESS.

The $USELESS phenomenon has ties to South Korean KOLs, Bradley Park, a Seoul-based analyst with DNTV Research, told CoinDesk in an interview.

At the center of everything is Yeomyung, a Korean KOL and liquidity provider who aped into USELESS early, held through a 50% drawdown, and is now sitting on serious paper gains.

“He made big profits during the Trump coin run, and with USELESS, he also earned from [providing liquidity] early on and is now just holding,” Park told CoinDesk. “They’re all just waiting for a CEX listing, because without it, there’s no real way to exit.”

Park tracked Yeomyung’s wallet activity and noted that his early conviction has inspired copy-trading among Korean retail investors. Even wallets tied to insiders on Solana’s Jupiter JUP are holding. The rise of USELESS reflects a broader evolution in Korean market behavior.

“I truly think Korean users in this market are no longer just exit liquidity,» he said. «They’re starting to understand the market and are evolving into real global players.”

Another character in this story is Bonk Guy, an early promoter of BONK, who reappeared to tweet enthusiastically about USELESS after the price rebounded, though some Korean traders, including Park, have questioned his sincerity.

“Bonk Guy was the first to shill LetsBONK,” Park said. “But after the price collapsed, he went silent. Now that USELESS is bouncing back, he’s suddenly showing interest again.”

Park pointed to the rise of Hyperliquid, Kaia, and now Solana-based memecoins like USELESS as evidence that Korea is no longer a secondary market.

While XRP’s rally was underpinned by legal clarity in the U.S. and narratives about Trump-era deregulation, USELESS feels less like chaos for chaos’s sake and more like a reflection of where attention, and exhaustion, is flowing in today’s market, Park said.

With no roadmap, no utility, and no pretense of building something bigger, it taps into a kind of memetic disillusionment: a collective shrug at traditional crypto promises, and an ironic bet on nothingness that, paradoxically, appears to be more honest than many tokens claiming to change the world.

Trump Endorses GENIUS Act

President Donald Trump on Tuesday endorsed the GENIUS Act in a Truth Social post following its bipartisan passage in the Senate, calling it a major step toward U.S. leadership in the digital asset sector.

Trump urged the House of Representatives to pass the bill “lightning fast” and without amendments, stating it should be sent to his desk with “no delays, no add-ons.”

The message signals strong executive support for the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which introduces reserve and compliance requirements for dollar-backed stablecoin issuers and marks the first major piece of crypto legislation to clear the Senate.

Trump framed the legislation as key to enabling “massive investment” and “big innovation,” positioning the U.S. as a global leader in digital assets.

While the bill passed the Senate with significant bipartisan backing, its fate in the House remains uncertain.

Democratic lawmakers are weighing potential amendments, including stricter oversight for foreign-issued tokens and limitations on potential issuers.

However, the bill isn’t without its critics. In a recent CoinDesk editorial, Georgetown University finance professor James J. Angel argues that the GENIUS Act is a flawed piece of legislation because of fragmented oversight by 55 regulators, redundant processes, exclusion of interest-bearing stablecoins, and inefficient joint rulemakings.

News Roundup: Coinbase Unveils Coinbase Payments for Merchants

Coinbase (COIN) unveiled Coinbase Payments on Wednesday, CoinDesk previously reported, a new merchant-focused payments stack built on its Ethereum layer-2 network Base.

The product allows global ecommerce platforms like Shopify to accept USDC 24/7 without needing blockchain expertise, using tools like a gasless stablecoin checkout, an ecommerce API engine, and an onchain payments protocol.

Coinbase said the system is designed to replicate traditional payment rails while lowering costs and offering always-on settlement. The launch positions Coinbase alongside fintech firms like Stripe and PayPal in the race to modernize payments with blockchain infrastructure.

It also deepens its partnership with USDC issuer Circle (CRCL), whose shares jumped 25% on the news, while Coinbase rallied 16%. Coinbase says stablecoins processed $30 trillion in transactions last year, tripling from the year prior, and it’s betting that programmable, dollar-pegged payments will continue to disrupt the global financial stack.

Market Movements:

• BTC: Bitcoin rebounded above $105,000 in a V-shaped recovery despite escalating Israel-Iran tensions, with strong ETF inflows and key support at $103,650 highlighting institutional confidence amid market volatility.
• ETH: Ethereum rebounded 4% to hold above $2,500 despite Middle East tensions, with record-high staking and accumulation signaling growing investor conviction amid market volatility.
• Gold: Gold slipped 0.19% to $3,383.11 after the Fed held rates steady at 4.25–4.5%, with Chair Powell signaling no imminent policy changes and emphasizing continued economic strength despite trade tensions.
• Nikkei 225: Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.27% Thursday as Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed, weighed down by the Fed’s rate pause and ongoing Israel-Iran tensions.
• S&P 500: The S&P 500 dipped 0.03% to 5,980.87 after the Fed held rates steady, with Chair Powell signaling a wait-and-see approach amid uncertainty over Trump’s tariffs.

Elsewhere in Crypto:

• Crypto doesn’t have to be a market for lemons (Blockworks)
• Are Criminals Really Switching From Crypto to Gold for Money Laundering? (Decrypt)
• UK to Propose Restrictions on How Banks Can Deal With Crypto Next Year (CoinDesk)