BitcoinKE

Switzerland’s financial regulator has approved the country’s first exchange-traded fund (ETF) that invests directly in Bitcoin and is available to retail investors opening a new route for individuals to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency through a regulated investment vehicle.
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) said that it had granted an exemption from standard risk-diversification requirements, citing Bitcoin’s longer trading history and higher trading volumes compared with other cryptocurrencies. The regulator did not identify the fund’s issuer or specify a launch date. Other providers have submitted or announced applications for similar products.
FINMA said institutions involved in the fund must mitigate operational and custody risks and clearly disclose investment risks. The fund falls under Switzerland’s category of alternative investment funds carrying special risks.

CASE STUDY | How This Wall Street Bank is Leveraging its Brand, Pricing, Distribution Network for its Bitcoin ETF

The regulator cautioned that Bitcoin remains highly volatile and investors could lose a substantial portion of their capital even when investing through an approved ETF.
The approval introduces a new retail investment fund structure in Switzerland where Bitcoin exchange-traded products already trade under a different regulatory framework. FINMA previously approved a cryptocurrency fund for qualified investors in 2021.


INSIGHTS | The World’s Largest Spot Bitcoin ETF is Emerging as a Key Signal for Bitcoin Market Sentiment




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In April 2018, while the country was still litigating a nullified presidential vote, a Kenyan-founded venture put a school’s student government election on a smart contract. Nobody – including the people who wrote it – could see the count.
In September 2017, Kenya’s Supreme Court did something no court on the continent had done before. It annulled a presidential election, and it did so not because of the ballots but because of what happened to the numbers between the polling station and the tallying centre. The court’s problem was transmission. The count itself was never really the issue.
Seven months later, four students at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg built a voting system where transmission could not be tampered with, and ran their school’s election on it.
Three of the four were Kenyan. They had been watching.

The Founders
The African Blockchain Initiative had four founders, all at the academy: Cyril Michino as chief executive and Amine Soufaih as chief operating officer, both in their second year, with Gibson Munene Njine as chief technology officer and Gerry Migwi as lead software developer, both in their first. Michino, Migwi and Njine are Kenyan. Soufaih is Moroccan.
They had started ABI the previous October as an education venture, and by early 2018 they had a problem familiar to anyone who has tried to build something while still in school.

“People told us blockchain sounded promising, and then asked, reasonably, where exactly we thought we were going to use it,” Njine says.
“You can explain the technology all day. Nobody is going to let you put it anywhere that matters.”

The Simulator Came First
Before the election there was the Crypto-Simulator.
February 2018. Bitcoin had peaked a few weeks earlier near twenty thousand dollars and was in the middle of giving most of it back, and across the continent a great many people were being sold a coin by somebody who had understood coins for about a fortnight.
ABI’s answer was a simulated market where you traded with virtual money. You could learn how the thing actually behaved — including what it feels like to be badly wrong — before putting rent into it. Around 400 people registered. They also set up six school chapters in universities and high schools, supplied with weekly teaching material, and ran a course and a blog alongside.

“We were not against the technology, we were interested in it,” Njine says.
“What we were against was the idea that the first thing you do with something you don’t understand is put money into it. Let people lose fake money for a month. Then they can decide.”

What they Actually Built
The election system was written in Solidity.
The academy already ran its student government vote electronically, so the team was replacing a mechanism rather than introducing one. The smart contract took the eligibility conditions, opened voting at seven in the morning and closed it at six in the evening, and released the result automatically the moment it shut — to the candidates, the electoral council, ABI and the entire student body at the same instant.
Once a vote was written it could not be altered. And at no point could anyone read a running total, the four of them included.

“Whenever someone votes, once that vote is in the system it can never be changed,” Michino said at the time.
“No person in the middle can change it. Nobody has power over anything.”

Njine is careful about the scale of what that proves.
“I wasn’t trying to fix an election. I was twenty and it was a school.
But the question underneath it is real. Can you build a count that nobody has to be trusted to report honestly? That’s the actual problem. Not the counting. The reporting.”

The Part that Mattered
The interesting consequence was institutional rather than technical.
The academy’s Electoral Student Council had always administered the vote. After the system ran, it could observe the process but could not affect it. A body that had held a power simply no longer held it, and nobody had to be persuaded to give it up, the architecture removed it.
Soufaih put the ambition plainly in an interview with the academy at the time: if it worked at school scale, the argument for using it at national scale stopped being hypothetical.
“No country will really trust the system if it has not been used before.”
The academy published the account under the headline “How African Blockchain Initiative Aims To Transfer Power To The People”.
ABI was later rebranded Chaptr Global.

What Happened to Them
Njine left the academy in June 2019 for a fellowship at the Watson Institute in Boulder, Colorado, selected from nearly 400 applicants across more than 60 countries and named that year’s first Sistla Tech Fellow. He went on to Babson College in Massachusetts on a full-tuition scholarship, graduated magna cum laude in 2023, and is now a software engineer at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, working on backend platform and cloud infrastructure.
Nothing in the intervening years has changed his view of what the 2018 project demonstrated, or of its limits.

“A school is not a country. The electorate is a few hundred people who all have email addresses and all have phones, and that is most of the hard problem solved before you start. Nobody should read what we did as proof that national elections can run this way.
What it does show is that the trust problem is a design problem. You can build a system where the question ‘do you trust the people counting’ doesn’t arise, because nobody is counting. That part was never the hard part. The hard part is getting anyone to let you try it.”

And on the Current Wave
Njine spends his working life around AI now, and says the pattern of 2018 has repeated almost exactly.

“Sometimes AI is the answer. Often it’s just better automation, and knowing which is the whole job. A rule that runs off your accounts. Two systems that finally talk to each other. Half the time that is the fix, and it’s cheaper, and you can read exactly what it did.
The thing being sold hardest is rarely the thing somebody needs. That was true of crypto and it’s true of AI. Somebody has to be willing to say so, and it usually isn’t the person selling it.”





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BlackRock has filed for a new Bitcoin-linked exchange-traded fund designed to limit some downside risk while capping potential gains, as the world’s largest asset manager expands beyond straightforward Bitcoin price exposure.

INSTITUTIONAL | BlackRock Files to Launch the iShares Bitcoin Managed Protect ETF

The proposed iShares Bitcoin Managed Protection ETF would use options linked to BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) to provide exposure to Bitcoin’s gains up to a specified limit while seeking to cushion losses, according to a Monday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The move addresses a key barrier to broader Bitcoin investment – volatility.

While spot Bitcoin ETFs give investors direct exposure to price movements, a product that seeks to reduce some losses could appeal to investors who want cryptocurrency exposure but are less willing to absorb the full impact of market declines.

INSTITUTIONAL | The Largest Asset Management Firm Globally Bets Bitcoin Investors Want Income, Not Just Price Gains

The strategy comes with a trade-off.

Investors would surrender some potential gains in exchange for a degree of downside protection which is not guaranteed. The fund’s prospectus warns that losses could exceed the intended protection level depending on market conditions and the performance of its options positions.
BlackRock’s flagship IBIT holds more than $65 billion in assets under management making it the largest Bitcoin ETF of its kind. The company launched the fund in January 2024 and introduced the iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF in June 2026 adding an options-based income strategy to its product lineup.
The latest filing signals that competition in crypto investment products is expanding beyond access to Bitcoin itself toward strategies that seek to manage how investors experience its price swings.
The proposed fund remains subject to the SEC registration process and is not yet approved for trading.


CASE STUDY | How This Wall Street Bank is Leveraging its Brand, Pricing, Distribution Network for its Bitcoin ETF




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JPMorgan deposits $38 million with the central bank of Nigeria ahead of banking licence.
JPMorgan Chase has deposited 50 billion naira ($38 million) with the Central Bank of Nigeria as it moves closer to securing a merchant banking licence, Bloomberg has reported.
The deposit meets a key regulatory requirement and signals the U.S. bank’s readiness to expand beyond its existing representative office in Lagos into a licensed banking operation.
JPMorgan expects to secure approval by the end of 2026 or early 2027, subject to the central bank’s decision. The licence would expand its ability to pursue corporate banking, trade finance, lending and capital-markets business in Africa’s largest economy.
JPMorgan had declined to comment on the developments.

JP Morgan Chase, World’s Largest Bank, Sets Up 3rd African Office in Kenya After Nigeria and South Africa



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MasterCard has introduced a risk-screening service for stablecoin payments that allows financial institutions to assess potential fraud, scams, and sanctions exposure before funds move on-chain as the payments company expands its digital asset infrastructure.
The service, called Stablecoin Security, combines payment data with blockchain intelligence to generate risk scores across the transaction lifecycle. Delivered through an application programming interface (API), it is designed to integrate with existing banking fraud detection and compliance systems.

“Stablecoins are creating new possibilities for value exchange, but financial institutions need the right intelligence and controls to participate with confidence,” Ann Johnson, MasterCard’s Executive Vice President of Security Solutions, said in a statement.

MasterCard Acquires CipherTrace to Support Firms in Crypto Security and Compliance

Borderless.xyz and
Keyrails
are the initial partners.
Mastercard said
Borderless.xyz connects financial institutions to licensed stablecoin providers across more than 113 countries and 72 currencies, while
Keyrails focuses on high-value cross-border trade payments, particularly in emerging markets.

LIST | MasterCard Launches the New ‘Crypto Partner Program’ with Over 80 Industry Leaders

MasterCard said the service will launch first in North America with worldwide commercial availability expected in 2027.
The company cited a study of 593 million stablecoin transfer events across 141 million Ethereum transactions in 2025 which found that nearly 60% involved complex, multi-step transactions rather than simple transfers between two parties.
The launch adds to Mastercard’s broader push into stablecoin payments and financial infrastructure, including its acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure provider, BVNK, in August 2026.
MasterCard plans to expand Stablecoin Security in 2027, including through BVNK.

STABLECOINS | MasterCard, BVNK Launch Platform Linking Stablecoins to Global Payments Network




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Crypto theft rose 55% quarter-on-quarter to $1.18 billion in the third quarter of 2026, across 107 incidents, according to blockchain security firm Hacken.
Smart-contract exploits accounted for 48% of losses, while access-control and operational failures made up 40%. Losses linked to compromised keys and operational failures fell about 30% from the previous quarter.

The 40% figure refers to the share of total third-quarter crypto hack losses attributed to access-control and operational failures, not 40% of incidents. Hacken’s report puts this at roughly $472 million of the $1.18 billion stolen.

The comparison with the second quarter is important:
Q2 2026: Access-control, key and infrastructure compromises accounted for about 88% of losses, or roughly $675 million.
Q3 2026: Access-control and operational failures accounted for 40%, or roughly $472 million.

MILESTONE | Q2 2026 Becomes the Most Active Quarter on Record by Number of Crypto Hacks

The shift highlights how attackers are increasingly exploiting vulnerabilities in smart contracts and surrounding systems, rather than relying solely on stolen private keys. The September breaches at Bitget and Liquid Network exposed weaknesses in withdrawal authorization and asset validation, underscoring the need for security controls beyond key protection and code audits.


CRYPTO CRIME | Crypto Hacks Surpass $700 Million in September Making it Worst Month of 2026 So Far



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SkyAI has sold its entire Solana (SOL) holdings and launched a $201.3 million share and warrant buyback as mounting losses and falling stock-market valuations challenge the economics of corporate cryptocurrency treasuries.
The former Sharps Technology held $223.8 million in cash as of October 16 2026 according to a regulatory filing.
Its tender offer allows shareholders and warrant holders to sell securities back to the company for $3 each targeting up to 95% of outstanding securities. The offer values the securities at about 0.95 times the company’s net asset value based on its cash holdings.
The decision comes amid a broader downturn in the digital assets treasury model.

INSTITUTIONAL | Why Leading Bitcoin Holder Spent Over 6x More Capital on Repurchasing STRC Shares Over Bitcoin

As reported in February 2026, publicly-listed Solana treasury companies had accumulated more than $1.5 billion in unrealized losses as falling SOL prices eroded the value of their holdings. By September 2026, research from DWF Ventures found that only four of the 20 largest crypto treasury companies traded above the value of their underlying digital assets. Such discounts weaken the model’s ability to raise equity capital to buy more cryptocurrency without diluting existing shareholders.

REALITY CHECK | Bitcoin Treasury Companies Lose $80 Billion as Bitcoin-Fueled Business Model Unravels

SkyAI’s move also contrasts with companies still pursuing accumulation.
DeFi Development Corp has continued expanding its SOL treasury and raising capital through preferred securities, while
French-listed Sequans Communications sold its remaining Bitcoin holdings as it exited its Bitcoin treasury strategy.

REALITY CHECK | Sequans is the Latest Bitcoin Treasury Firm to Sell All its Bitcoin

The diverging approaches reflect a growing divide between companies seeking further crypto exposure and those reconsidering whether holding digital assets remains the best use of corporate capital.
SkyAI’s sale followed scrutiny from major shareholder, Bastion Trading, which questioned the rapid reduction in its SOL holdings and challenged the proposed buyback terms. The company has not said it is abandoning its broader Solana ambitions – it still describes its strategy as building a financial platform combining Solana-based stablecoin payments with artificial intelligence.
However, it has not detailed how that platform will proceed without a SOL treasury.


EXPERT OPINION | ‘The Market Does Not Have an Appetite for Dozens of Digital Asset Treasuries,’ Says Director of Institutional at Gemini




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Revolut has secured a digital-asset licence from Gibraltar’s financial regulator for a newly established subsidiary strengthening the fintech’s plans to expand its cryptocurrency business internationally.
The Gibraltar Financial Services Commission authorised Revolut Global Digital Assets Limited to conduct regulated distributed ledger technology activities including crypto
order execution,
custody, and
staking, according to the Gibraltar government.
The authorisation will support Revolut’s international crypto operations alongside its existing services in the UK and European Economic Area where it operates under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework.

INTRODUCING | Leading UK Fintech, Revolut, Launches EURR, a Euro-Backed Stablecoin

Revolut, which says it serves more than 80 million retail customers globally and has over 16 million crypto users, has not yet specified which additional markets or services the Gibraltar entity will support.
The company said further details on target regions and service rollouts would be announced in due course.

REGULATION | Leading Fintech Giant, Revolut, Secures Preliminary Approval to Offer Crypto Services in UAE

Separately, Revolut has fully resumed onboarding new customers in Gibraltar allowing residents to open accounts and access its payments and electronic money services.
The move adds to Revolut’s broader expansion push as financial technology firms seek regulatory approval to offer digital-asset services across multiple jurisdictions.


REGULATION | Leading European Fintech, Revolut, to Delist USDT from August 2026 Over Regulatory and Risk Concerns




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The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has added 9 crypto-asset service providers to its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) register, bringing the total to over 375 unique providers.
The latest update includes
BingX’s Austrian entity,
MEGE zweite GmbH, and
YouHodler’s Italian subsidiary.
Banco Santander’s Openbank, and lenders
VR-Bank Alb-Blau-Donau, and
VR Bank im sudlichen Franken
was also included with Germany dominating with over half of latest entrants.

REGULATION | Germany Leads EU Crypto Licensing as MiCA Approvals Close

YouHodler Italy is authorised to provide crypto-asset custody, exchange services, order execution and transfers.
In a previous BitKE post 2 months ago, custody dominated the majority of licensed virtual service providers with at least 55 bank or bank-branded institutions being identified in the register. As of the last update, only 5 jurisdictions, namely:
Germany
France
The Netherlands
Cyprus, and
Malta
accounted for over half of all entities in the dataset.

REGULATION | Europe Now Has Over 300 MiCA-Approved Crypto Firms – Custody Services Dominate at ~70%

Interestingly, the number of non-compliant crypto asset service providers has also increased to total over 175.
The additions reflect the continued expansion of Europe’s regulatory framework for crypto firms, which requires providers to obtain the relevant authorisations to operate across the European Union.


CASE STUDY | Lithuania’s Example Reveals the Impact of MiCA Regulations on Economic Activity




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Banks could slow the growth of stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC by offering savers higher interest rates according to a working paper by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
Researchers Rashad Ahmed and Iñaki Aldasoro analysed U.S. data from January 2019 to June 2025 finding that a one-basis-point increase in bank deposit rates was associated with a decline in average stablecoin market capitalisation growth over 10 weeks from about 15% to 12%.


The findings suggest stablecoins and bank deposits compete for some of the same funds. Because most stablecoins pay little or no interest, better returns on traditional savings accounts could encourage users to move money back into banks.

EXPERT OPINION | ‘Tokenized Deposits Are Probably Going to Take Over from Stablecoins ​5 Years from Now,’ Says Bank of England Policymaker

The effect was stronger for Circle’s USDC than Tether’s USDT which researchers said was consistent with USDC’s closer ties to U.S. users.
The findings add to concerns among banks that stablecoins could draw deposits away from traditional lenders, potentially raising funding costs and affecting lending capacity. However, the paper does not establish that stablecoin growth necessarily reduces total bank deposits or lending, and its findings are based on a period of relatively high interest rates.


REALITY CHECK | Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Warns Crypto Metrics May Be Far Less Precise Than They Look




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Broadcom, Verizon and other U.S.-listed companies are opposing plans by OKX and Intercontinental Exchange to offer tokenized versions of their shares citing concerns over
pricing,
liquidity,
investor protection, and
potential confusion about issuer approval.

Wall Street is pushing back against tokenized stocks.
#Broadcom, #Verizon and #UnitedHealth are among nine companies that have objected to having their shares listed on OKX-ICE’s planned blockchain trading platform.
The SEC framework aims to enable 24/7 stock trading.
Tokenization is advancing. Issuer buy-in remains a hurdle.
— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) October 19, 2026
The objection comes just 2 weeks after the filing with U.S. regulators to launch OKXICE, a platform for trading tokenized U.S. stocks around the clock. OKXICE is a joint venture between cryptocurrency exchange, OKX, and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

INSTITUTIONAL | NYSE and OKX File for 24/7 Tokenised U.S Stock Trading

The pushback highlights a central tension in tokenized equities where crypto platforms want to expand stock trading beyond traditional market hours while companies fear third-party tokens could create parallel markets without adequate transparency or clear links to underlying shareholder rights.

EDITORIAL | Why Accounting and Price Discovery Remain the Biggest Hurdles to Capital Markets Tokenization

The objections also test the SEC’s new framework which allows qualifying venues to list tokenized securities unless issuers formally opt out.
In September 2026, SEC ruled it would provide a 5-year exemption for qualifying platforms trading tokenized securities. Under the framework, platforms must notify companies before listing tokenized versions of their shares while issuers can object during a 30-day period.
The dispute centres on who controls how public shares are represented and traded on-chain and whether tokenization can deliver new efficiencies without weakening existing market safeguards.


EXPERT OPINION | Tokenization Alone Will Not Fix Illiquid Assets, Say Industry Experts




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Lithuania is shifting its fintech strategy from attracting companies through fast licensing to building a more sustainable financial services sector, with tighter regulation reducing the number of crypto firms and placing greater emphasis on operational substance and compliance.
The Baltic country attracted hundreds of virtual asset service providers (VASPs) after Estonia tightened its crypto rules in 2022. At its peak, nearly 800 companies had registered or notified authorities of virtual asset activity in Lithuania. However, an examination by the country’s Financial Crime Investigation Service found that about 80% of the VASPs reviewed had no employees, while roughly 90% had never filed a suspicious transaction report.
Lithuania responded by introducing a €125,000 authorised-capital requirement and stricter due diligence and suitability standards, reducing registrations by roughly three-quarters before the number partially recovered as compliant operators remained.
The shift comes as the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) establishes common authorisation and governance requirements for crypto service providers across the bloc.

REGULATION | Europe Now Has Over 300 MiCA-Approved Crypto Firms – Custody Services Dominate at ~70%

Lithuania had issued four licences to crypto-asset service providers by spring 2026, including approvals for
Robinhood Europe,
CoinGate,
Nuvei Liquidity and
Micar Assets,
according to Deimantė Žemgulytė, a fintech expert at Invest Lithuania.

Lithuania’s broader fintech strategy also relies on regulatory access and payment infrastructure.

The Bank of Lithuania operates a Newcomer Programme and regulatory sandbox to help companies navigate supervision and test financial innovations. Its CENTROlink payment system provides licensed electronic money institutions and payment firms with access to European payment infrastructure.

REALITY CHECK | Banks Now Account for Nearly 1 in 4 Crypto Service Providers Under MiCA Framework

The country hosts several hundred fintech companies and has developed a substantial base of licensed electronic money and payment institutions positioning it as an option for firms seeking access to European markets following Brexit.
The experience highlights a broader challenge for fintech hubs – attracting large numbers of companies does not necessarily translate into lasting economic activity. Lithuania’s next phase of growth will depend on its ability to combine accessible supervision and efficient licensing with stronger compliance standards and established financial infrastructure.



REGULATION | European Crypto Users Have More Trust in Regulated Platforms Under MiCA, Says Crypto Executive




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Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, has conditionally declared daily cash dividends on its STRC preferred stock for November 2026 as the security continues to trade below its $100 par value.
The company’s board declared dividends for each calendar day from November 1 to November 30 2026 with payments beginning November 2 2026 according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The arrangement is subject to shareholder approval and the implementation of related amendments.

INSTITUTIONAL | Leading Bitcoin Holder, Strategy, Proposes Daily Dividends to Restore Preferred Shares to $100

Strategy will maintain STRC’s annualized dividend rate at 12% for November 2026. Management said it would continue recommending the rate until the stock demonstrates “sustained, healthy trading near $100 per share.”
STRC fell 0.2% to $99.32 on Friday, according to Yahoo Finance, remaining below its stated value despite the elevated dividend rate.
The preferred stock is one of Strategy’s main fundraising instruments for financing Bitcoin purchases. Its performance is therefore important to the company’s ability to raise capital through preferred-stock issuance.
Strategy has also used share repurchases to support STRC’s market price. During the week ending October 4 2026, the company repurchased $176 million worth of the preferred stock, more than six times the $28 million it spent on Bitcoin purchases during the period.

INSTITUTIONAL | Why Leading Bitcoin Holder Spent Over 6x More Capital on Repurchasing STRC Shares Over Bitcoin

The company added 250 Bitcoin for $21.5 million last week, bringing its total holdings to 848,250 BTC.
The proposed daily dividend structure follows Strategy’s June introduction of a capital framework that allows Bitcoin sales to help fund dividend payments. The company also raised STRC’s annualized dividend rate to 12% at the time.
The shift to daily dividends is intended to make the security more attractive to investors and help stabilize its price around $100, potentially supporting Strategy’s ability to raise fresh capital for Bitcoin acquisitions.


INSTITUTIONAL | Why This Leading Crypto Asset Manager is Introducing Quarterly Cash Distributions from Staking Rewards




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Charles Schwab has completed the rollout of direct Bitcoin and Ether trading to eligible retail clients and is gradually introducing cryptocurrency transfers expanding its digital asset services across its brokerage platform.

The U.S. brokerage allows clients to buy and sell
Bitcoin (BTC) and
Ether (ETH)
through Schwab Crypto charging a fee of 0.75% per transaction. Clients can trade cryptocurrencies alongside traditional investments through Schwab’s website and mobile app.

INSTITUTIONAL | Brokerage Giant Preparing to Roll Out Bitcoin, Ether Trading in H1 2026

The transfer rollout will allow eligible clients to move supported cryptocurrencies between Schwab accounts and external wallets. Access is being introduced in stages with clients required to register and approve withdrawal addresses before making transfers.

Schwab, which manages more than $13 trillion in client assets, is also preparing to expand its cryptocurrency offering. The company plans to add
Solana (SOL),
Avalanche (AVAX) and
Chainlink (LINK)
by the end of 2026 broadening its range beyond Bitcoin and Ether.
Chief Executive, Rick Wurster, has identified cryptocurrency trading as a potential source of transaction-based revenue alongside other emerging investment products. The expansion places Schwab among traditional financial firms seeking to capture retail crypto demand by integrating digital assets into established brokerage services.

https://bitcoinke.io/2026/08/luno-in-the-eu/

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Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, plans to enter about 40 new emerging and developing markets as demand for on-chain payments and digital dollars increases, CEO and Co-Founder, Jeremy Allaire, told Reuters.
Speaking on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank meetings in Bangkok, Allaire said the industry was transitioning from early adoption toward mainstream use driven by individuals and businesses seeking access to internet-based financial services.
Circle is accelerating its international expansion through a $400 million acquisition of payments company TazaPay.

CASE STUDY | Why USDC Issuer, Circle, Acquired this Leading Asian Local Payments Platform

The $100 million strategic investment by Binance into Circle also signals the growing adoption of USDC within emerging markets where Binance is popular.

STABLECOINS | Binance Invests $100 Million in Circle, Expands USDC Partnership

The company holds about 25% of the global stablecoin market compared with nearly 60% for Tether’s USDT, according to the report. USDC circulation increased 19% year-on-year to $73.3 billion in the second quarter of 2026.
Regulatory developments are also supporting adoption. Circle became one of the first stablecoin issuers to obtain a U.S. federal bank charter in July 2026 while the U.S. GENIUS Act is expected to establish a clearer framework for dollar-backed stablecoins.

REGULATION | Circle Receives Final OCC Approval to Establish a National Trust Bank

Allaire said financial institutions and payment companies were increasingly moving beyond pilot projects to use stablecoins for cross-border settlements and asset transfers. Circle’s Arc infrastructure is being used by firms including
BlackRock,
Visa, and
Standard Chartered.
He also pointed to growing demand for USDC in machine-to-machine payments, as artificial intelligence agents make small transactions to access online services and real-time data.

$USDC issuer, #Circle, says it has now processed over 165 million transactions with 80,000 agents participating.
“This is only a start.” – @circle
— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) October 14, 2026
However, Allaire warned that the expansion of AI was creating new cybersecurity risks including threats from sophisticated attackers and automated networks of AI agents.


PRESS RELEASE | ​The European Banking Authority (EBA) Classifies USDC as the First Significant e-Money Token in the European Union




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French Bitcoin treasury company, Capital B, has reported a net loss of €69.5 million ($78 million) for the first half of 2026 largely driven by a non-cash impairment charge on its Bitcoin holdings as the company continued expanding its cryptocurrency reserves.

#CapitalB reported a $78 million net loss for H1 2026 driven by a $75.8 million Bitcoin impairment charge.
The charge reflected $BTC prices on June 30 2026 and had no direct cash impact, highlighting how Bitcoin price movements can weigh on treasury companies’ reported earnings without triggering cash outflows.
#BitcoinTreasury @_ALCPB
— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) October 16, 2026
The company recorded a €67.5 million ($75.8 million) Bitcoin impairment charge based on prices on June 30 2026, according to its half-year financial report. The adjustment had no direct cash impact and did not represent a sale of Bitcoin.
Capital B’s consolidated revenue rose 3.5% year-on-year to €5.85 million while adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) showed a loss of €1.07 million compared with a loss of €815,000 in the first half of 2025.
The results highlight the contrast between the company’s reported earnings and its Bitcoin accumulation strategy under which the value of its holdings can fluctuate significantly with market prices.

CASE STUDY | This Ethereum Treasury Company Just Reported Over 1 Billion in Net Loss for H1 2026

Capital B raised approximately €27.5 million ($30 million) during the first half and increased its Bitcoin holdings by 11.2%, from 2,823 BTC at the beginning of the year to 3,139 BTC as of June 30 2026.
The company continued accumulating Bitcoin after the reporting period. Its strategic reserve reached 3,538 BTC on September 30 2026 representing a 25.3% increase since the start of the year. The holdings had a total acquisition cost of €310.6 million, equivalent to an average purchase price of €87,805 per Bitcoin.

INSTITUTIONAL | Capital B Becomes Second-Largest Publicly-Traded Bitcoin Holder in Europe

The expansion has established Capital B as Europe’s second-largest publicly-traded Bitcoin holder, behind Germany’s Bitcoin Group, according to treasury rankings. Its strategy focuses on increasing the amount of Bitcoin held per fully diluted share over time.
However, the company’s share price remained under pressure. Capital B shares were down about 25% year-to-date as of this writing despite a slight increase in early trading.
The company’s performance illustrates a key feature of corporate Bitcoin treasury strategies where businesses can increase their Bitcoin reserves while reporting substantial accounting losses when market prices fall below the levels used to value their holdings.


REALITY CHECK | Bitcoin Treasury Companies Lose $80 Billion as Bitcoin-Fueled Business Model Unravels



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Ledger has unveiled Atom, a smartphone-like device designed to combine everyday applications with hardware-based protection for cryptocurrency assets, digital identities, and AI-assisted transactions.
The French hardware wallet maker said the device runs a standard operating system alongside its proprietary Ledger OS which operates on a separate secure chip to protect private keys and control transaction approvals. The design allows users to access everyday apps and crypto services on one device without exposing sensitive wallet operations to the standard operating system.
The device includes a hardware privacy switch that cuts power to its camera and microphone while its secure screen is designed to ensure users physically approve sensitive transactions and other actions. Ledger is also positioning Atom for AI agents allowing them to initiate requests while keeping final approval under the user’s control.
Other features include
built-in Ledger Wallet access for buying, selling and swapping crypto,
encrypted messaging between Atom devices,
passkey protection for logins, and
support for identity verification without routinely disclosing personal information.

CASE STUDY | Why This Cold Wallet Exploit Exposes a Big Bitcoin Hardware Security Vulnerability

The device will also ship with Solana Mobile’s Seeker app providing access to more than 1,500 applications on the Solana decentralised application store.
Ledger is offering reservations for a Founders Edition at $849 secured with a fully refundable $100 deposit. The company estimates deliveries will begin in the second quarter of 2027 noting that the device remains in development and its specifications and pricing may change.
The launch comes as Ledger faces scrutiny over a recent supply-chain incident in which malicious hardware implants were reportedly inserted into devices sold through a reseller in Asia allowing attackers to capture users’ recovery phrases.

CRYPTO CRIME | Ledger Confirms Hardware Wallet Implant with Reported Crypto Losses Exceeding Over $80 Million

Ledger says Atom’s security architecture includes protections designed to prevent sensitive operations from being compromised by the standard operating system.


REALITY CHECK | Europe’s Largest Consumer Electronics Retailer Removes Ledger Wallets Internationally




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Polygon Labs has completed its acquisition of cryptocurrency payments company, CoinMe, adding regulated money-transfer capabilities across 48 U.S. states as the blockchain developer expands its focus on payments and stablecoin infrastructure.

REALITY CHECK | Polygon Lays Off Workforce as it Pivots to Payments Business

The acquisition gives Polygon access to 37 state money transmitter licences and 11 exemptions, alongside registration with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) as a money services business, the company said.
The deal forms part of a combined $250 million acquisition announced in January 2026 for CoinMe and wallet infrastructure provider, Sequence. Polygon plans to integrate their regulatory coverage, wallet technology, and cross-chain transaction routing into its Open Money Stack payments platform.
Tazapay,
Mesh,
Toku, and
Kira
are among the first companies adopting the platform for cross-border business payments, cryptocurrency funding, payroll, and access to U.S. dollar accounts.
Tazapay is using the infrastructure to connect stablecoins with local currencies for international business payments.

REALITY CHECK | Circle’s $400 Million TazaPay Deal Shows the Importance of Local Rails, Local Payments for Stablecoins

Mesh is adding payment on-ramps to its network of more than 300 wallets, exchanges and financial services providers.

INSIGHTS | What This Funding Round, Led by the World’s Largest Exchange, Signals

Toku plans to use the platform for compliant payroll and local-currency payouts in more than 100 countries.

INTRODUCING | Polygon Rolls Out Private Stablecoin Payments for Institutions

Polygon said its blockchain has processed more than $3 trillion in cumulative stablecoin transfer volume.

The company is seeking to combine blockchain settlement with traditional banking and payment networks allowing businesses to move funds between bank accounts, cash, and digital assets through a unified infrastructure.
The acquisition marks a further shift in Polygon’s strategy from blockchain scaling technology towards regulated financial infrastructure as crypto companies compete to capture demand for stablecoin payments and cross-border money transfers.


INSTITUTIONAL | Why This Japanese Financial Giant Became a Strategic Investor in an Asian Stablecoin Payments Firm



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Farcaster’s transition under crypto investor, Balaji Srinivasan, is testing whether decentralized social media can combine open infrastructure with stricter controls over who participates and how online communities are governed.
The social network, which is being repositioned as the Network State Protocol, is introducing a social contract that sets rules for participation including restrictions on hate speech, death threats, scams, stalking, and repeated harassment. Users who decline the terms can retain read-only access through the main application while moving their keys, funds, followers, and post history to another client remains an option.

Why SocialFi Has Yet to Take Off – And What Needs to Change

The changes reflect a broader shift in how decentralization is being defined. Rather than focusing exclusively on blockchain infrastructure and resistance to corporate control, the debate is increasingly about who sets community rules, controls access, and determines how users interact.
Farcaster’s approach is built around the idea that online communities can develop shared rules and eventually extend into physical societies. The platform also plans to introduce AI-powered moderation and progressively require users to verify that they are human.

The move highlights a tension at the heart of decentralized social media:
An open protocol does not necessarily guarantee unrestricted participation within individual applications.

CASE STUDY | This Hack Has Exposed Crypto’s Permissionless Idealism

Decentralized networks can allow users to move between competing clients while giving application operators discretion over moderation and access. However, the practical value of that freedom depends on whether users can retain their audiences, identities, and social connections when they leave.
Farcaster’s transition could help establish a model in which communities exercise greater control over membership and conduct without requiring a single application to govern the entire network. It also raises questions about how much power application operators should retain over users who depend on their services.
The distinction is becoming increasingly important as decentralized social platforms seek to offer alternatives to conventional networks where companies typically control both the underlying infrastructure and the rules governing participation.
For Farcaster, the test will be whether users can retain meaningful control over their digital identities and relationships while communities enforce their own rules. The outcome could help shape whether decentralization is defined primarily by
open technology,
user ownership, or
the ability of communities to govern themselves.


REALITY CHECK | Why DeFi is Increasingly Moving Toward Permissioned Structures and Controls Over Ideological Decentralization




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MasterCard and stablecoin infrastructure provider, BVNK, have launched a platform that combines traditional currencies and stablecoins allowing banks, fintech firms, and businesses to offer digital-asset payment services through a single integration.
The MasterCard Global Money Platform brings together Mastercard’s payments network and BVNK’s stablecoin infrastructure through a single application programming interface (API). It is the first major integration of the two companies’ capabilities since Mastercard completed its acquisition of BVNK in August 2026.

STABLECOINS | The MasterCard $1.8 Billion BVNK Deal Signals the Importance of Underlying Stablecoin Infrastructure

The platform allows businesses to embed multi-currency accounts, real-time currency conversion, stablecoin-linked payment cards, and local bank payouts into their own products. Companies can also use the infrastructure to manage treasury operations, payments, and settlements, reducing the need to connect separate providers for different services.
Mastercard said its Move payment network, which reaches more than 17 billion endpoints, will enable customers to convert stablecoin balances into local currency and send funds directly to recipients’ bank accounts. Coverage is expected to expand to more than 40 currencies across over 200 countries and territories in 2027.
Customers will also be able to spend stablecoin balances through Mastercard-linked cards with card issuance available in more than 130 countries.
Payments company, Nuvei, and card-issuing platform, Marqeta, are among the first businesses expected to integrate the platform alongside Ontop, Beem, and Almond FinTech.

LIST | MasterCard Launches the New ‘Crypto Partner Program’ with Over 80 Industry Leaders

The launch reflects Mastercard’s push to connect on-chain payment infrastructure with established financial networks as stablecoins gain traction in cross-border payments, business settlements, and treasury management.

“With Global Money Platform, we’re delivering on our promise to connect BVNK’s technology with the scale and trust of Mastercard,” said Chris Harmse, BVNK’s co-founder and chief business officer.

Mastercard said the platform could eventually support transactions involving artificial intelligence agents and additional regulated forms of digital money including tokenized bank deposits.
The platform is available through BVNK.


INSTITUTIONAL | MasterCard Expands Stablecoin Settlement Network to Include USDC, PYUSD and RLUSD



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