BitcoinKE

Arbitrum’s ARB surged more than 30% after Robinhood Chain generated more than $2 million in 24-hour revenue, highlighting a business model that could be far more important than the token’s latest price move.
Robinhood Chain is an Arbitrum-powered Layer 2, and under its agreement, 10% of net protocol revenue flows back to the Arbitrum ecosystem.
8% goes to the ArbitrumDAO treasury, and
2% to the Developer Guild.
That means Robinhood’s growth is becoming Arbitrum’s revenue opportunity.
Robinhood Chain generated more than $2 million in transaction revenue in 24 hours making it a ‘fantastic business,’ according to the Co-Founder of OffChain Labs, the company behind Arbitrum Layer 2.


At the latest pace, even a 10% share would represent a meaningful recurring revenue stream for Arbitrum and the upside comes from scale.
Robinhood brings 28 million users and $307 billion in assets under management to an Arbitrum-based chain. The network was built to host tokenized stocks and other real-world assets, but its early growth has been driven heavily by memecoin trading and token launches.


That distinction matters.
If Robinhood eventually moves a meaningful share of its brokerage, crypto and tokenized-asset activity onchain, Arbitrum would collect revenue from the infrastructure underneath the activity rather than having to win those users itself.
For ARB, that could be the bigger story:
Robinhood isn’t just another chain using Arbitrum technology. It could become Arbitrum’s largest commercial customer – and potentially its biggest recurring revenue engine.

The question is no longer whether Arbitrum can attract chains.
It is whether those chains can generate enough economic activity to turn Arbitrum’s technology into a durable business.


CASE STUDY | This Protocol Activity Provides Strong Indication of Where the Market Sees the Opportunity




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The London Stock Exchange (LSE) Group is partnering with Payward, the parent of crypto exchange, Kraken, to bring some of the U.K.’s biggest listed companies on-chain adding another major traditional market to its rapidly expanding xStocks platform.
LSE plans to list xStocks on its new 24-hour venue, the LSE 24, in 2027 subject to regulatory approval.
The tokens will represent U.K.-listed shares and allow round-the-clock trading while maintaining the market safeguards and governance standards of traditional equities.

Julia Hoggett, the CEO of the London Stock Exchange, said that tokenization ‘must develop in a way that preserves the trust, rights and role of regulated markets.’

CASE STUDY | The SpaceX IPO On-Chain Allocations Failure Exposes the Biggest Underlying Risk Plaguing Tokenization

In a statement, Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward, said:
“For years, the assumption was that crypto and traditional finance were on a collision course, and one of them would have to lose. That was never the real story.”

The deal extends xStocks’ push beyond U.S. equities. Payward said in July 2026 it was expanding the platform to stocks from the U.K., Hong Kong, South Korea, and other markets, as exchanges and crypto firms compete to put global equities on blockchains.

INTRODUCING | Leading South African Crypto Exchange, VALR, Pioneers xStocks in South Africa

The scale of that expansion is becoming significant.
xStocks says it has surpassed $40 billion in cumulative transaction volume, including nearly $20 billion traded on-chain, with nearly 200,000 holders in just over a year. It has also expanded to more than 100 partners and seven blockchain ecosystems, with more than 500 tokenized equities in its pipeline.


STATISTICS | Tokenized Stock Transfer Volume Jump by Over 400% in August 2026




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The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) has announced its latest round of Bitcoin Development Fund (BDF) grants, distributing more than 500 million satoshis across 16 projects worldwide, including three with a direct footprint in Africa.
Announced on August 25, 2026, this round backs open-source Bitcoin and Nostr development, self-custody and wallet security, censorship-resistant messaging, mobile money-to-bitcoin integrations, and freedom tech education for people living under authoritarian regimes.
The grants touch Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, with a notable emphasis on giving people in repressive or financially excluded environments a private, non-custodial way onto Bitcoin.
Since launching in 2020, the BDF has now granted a cumulative $12.2 million in BTC to 383 projects across 70 countries.

The African Projects
1.) BitSpenda – Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda, Ghana


Cross-border money transfers across Africa remain slow, expensive, and dependent on intermediaries. BitSpenda is a non-custodial, account-free mobile money-to-bitcoin bridge that lets users in Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda, and Ghana send bitcoin from a Lightning wallet straight into a mobile money account, landing in local currency on the other end. HRF’s grant will help BitSpenda expand these payment tools to make cross-border transfers faster, cheaper, and more accessible across the region.
2.) Bitzed – Zambia


Mobile money is widely used in Zambia, but buying bitcoin has typically meant going through banks or centralized exchanges that keep identity records and control users’ assets. Bitzed, built by Bitcoin educator Humphrey, connects Zambia’s mobile money networks directly to Bitcoin, letting users buy with their existing mobile money accounts and receive funds straight into their own Lightning wallet.
HRF’s support will help extend this self-custodial on-ramp to more Zambians shut out of traditional banking and exposed to financial repression.

3.) Hack4Freedom – Nigeria, Kenya, Brazil


Women in Africa and Latin America are often excluded from the technical training needed to contribute to freedom tech. Hack4Freedom, created by Evento founder, Brianna Honkawa d’Estries, is a two-week developer education program training women in Africa and Brazil to build on Bitcoin and other open-source freedom tech with cohorts running in Lagos, Nairobi, and São Paulo.
HRF’s grant will cover event and travel costs opening up new opportunities for women to build financial and digital freedom tools.
Worth a mention: My First Bitcoin, a global free-education network active in more than 40 countries including Uganda, will also use its HRF grant to roughly double its trained educators from 60 to 120 — many of them serving communities under authoritarian rule.

The other 13 grantees span Bitcoin development, Nostr messaging, mining decentralization, and education:
Project Island Resilience (Jamaica/Caribbean) – building offline Bluetooth, NFC, and e-cash payments into the Flash wallet for use during protests and internet shutdowns.
Libbitcoinkernel – extracting Bitcoin Core’s security and consensus rules into reusable modules for developer yuvicc.
A Node in Every Wallet: Utreexo Wallet Integrations (Floresta) – a lightweight embeddable Bitcoin node, backed for developer Luis Schwab.
BDK-Dart – a Flutter-based Bitcoin wallet toolkit, supported for developer John Osezele.
WalletScrutiny – audits Bitcoin wallet apps to verify they match their open-source code.
Vector – a Nostr-based encrypted messenger expanding to iOS, desktop, and voice/video calls.
Flotilla Chat – a Discord-style, censorship-resistant platform built on Nostr by the Coracle team.
OpenAlert – a decentralized emergency alert system built on Nostr.
0xchat – a Nostr messaging app with Tor integration and a built-in Cashu wallet.
256 Foundation – open-sourcing Bitcoin mining hardware and software to reduce centralization.
Agora (Venezuela) – a Nostr/Bitcoin activist coordination platform running a 9-month civic infrastructure pilot.
HODL: Hands On Design Lab (India) – training early-career UI/UX designers for Bitcoin apps.

HRF did not disclose the individual grant amounts awarded to each project.


LIST | 4 African Projects, Out of 20 Globally, Among the Latest Recipients of Bitcoin Development Fund Grants by Human Rights Foundation (HRF)



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U.S. regulators have imposed a $172,539 penalty on a former White House teleprompter operator who used advance access to presidential speeches to profit from prediction-market contracts, marking one of the clearest tests yet of insider trading rules in the rapidly expanding event-contracts market.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said that Gabriel Perez misappropriated material, nonpublic information obtained through his government job, to trade so-called ‘presidential mention’ contracts on prediction-market platform, Kalshi, between December 2025 and February 2026.
Perez had access to presidential speeches before they were delivered and used that information to trade contracts tied to whether specific words or phrases would be mentioned by the president, the CFTC said.

CASE STUDY | Prediction Markets Insider Trading Enters White House

The trades generated $107,539.02 in unlawful profits.
Under a settlement with the CFTC, Perez must return those profits, pay a $65,000 civil monetary penalty and accept a three-year ban from trading. He also agreed to cease and desist from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations.
The CFTC said the $65,000 penalty represented a substantial discount under the agency’s new cooperation advisory because of Perez’s ‘exemplary cooperation’ with the investigation.

While the Santos case was 5 among new enforcement cases, the rest received temporary bans after cooperating with investigations.
“Mr. Santos faces additional financial penalties and will be banned permanently from trading on Kalshi given his lack of cooperation,” a Kalshi…
— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) September 1, 2026
The case is significant because it extends the familiar principles of insider trading enforcement into prediction markets, where traders bet on real-world events rather than traditional securities.

The Perez case now provides a concrete regulatory precedent:
Privileged government information can trigger enforcement when it is used to trade event contracts for personal gain.

REGULATION | Prediction Markets Fall Under Our Federal Mandate, Says Chairman, CFTC

The CFTC described the contracts as swaps and said Perez breached a duty of trust and confidence by using information obtained through his federal employment.
The agency also credited Kalshi with assisting in the investigation.
The enforcement action underscores a broader challenge for prediction-market platforms as they expand into areas traditionally occupied by financial exchanges, bookmakers, and polling organizations. The more markets are tied to sensitive political, economic, and corporate information, the greater the importance of surveillance and controls against traders with an informational advantage.

REGULATION | ‘Gambling by Another Name is Still Gambling,’ Says New York as It Sues Coinbase, Gemini Over Prediction Markets Offerings

For prediction markets, the case also establishes that the novelty of an event contract does not necessarily shield traders from traditional market-integrity rules.
The CFTC’s action signals that regulators are prepared to treat misuse of confidential information in these markets as a market-abuse issue, potentially setting a precedent for how insider trading is policed as prediction markets become a more established part of financial markets.

The key angle here is precedent rather than simply the penalty:
The CFTC is effectively demonstrating that insider trading principles can apply to prediction-market contracts, even when the underlying “asset” is something as unusual as whether a president says a particular word.


CASE STUDY | This Platform Sets Insider Trading Precedent on Enforcement Action for Prediction Markets




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Kalshi’s lifetime ban of former U.S. congressman, George Santos, marks a significant step in how prediction markets may police insider trading extending market-integrity enforcement beyond traditional financial exchanges.
Kalshi has permanently banned former U.S. congressman, George Santos, and fined him $71,356 after finding ‘reasonable cause’ to believe he engaged in insider trading and market manipulation.

The prediction market, @Kalshi, fined the Republican nominee in a competitive House race and imposed its first-ever lifetime ban, against former Rep. George Santos, after insider trading investigations.https://t.co/9FCfc9WmvD#InsiderTrading #PredictionMarkets #Kalshi pic.twitter.com/fgCEPRPt9G
— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) August 31, 2026
Santos made $17,839 betting on whether he would attend the 2026 State of the Union address despite being prohibited from trading on an event he could directly influence. Kalshi said he also made public statements, some misleading, aimed at moving the market.

“Santos placed a series of large trades in a market where the underlying contracts depended upon his own attendance at the event,” Kalshi wrote in the disciplinary record posted on its site.
He then began making a series of public statements regarding his attendance at the event in an attempt to influence the price of Yes and No contracts, respectively. Some of these included false or misleading statements.”
Santos did not attend and that is where he ultimately put his money.
The lifetime ban is Kalshi’s first and sets a significant precedent for prediction markets which are increasingly being treated as financial markets requiring the same emphasis on
insider information,
conflicts of interest, and
market integrity.

CRYPTO CRIME | A Look at One of the First Criminal Prosecutions Explicitly Linked to Prediction Markets Insider Trading

The case also shows that enforcement is moving beyond government regulators. Kalshi referred the activity to the CFTC which separately fined Santos $35,000 and imposed a three-year trading ban.
Under the CFTC regulations, Kalshi is responsible for acting as a first line of defense against market manipulation.

While the Santos case was 5 among new enforcement cases, the rest received temporary bans after cooperating with investigations.
“Mr. Santos faces additional financial penalties and will be banned permanently from trading on Kalshi given his lack of cooperation,” a Kalshi spokesperson said in a statement.

As prediction markets expand into politics, sports, and financial events, platforms are likely to face growing pressure to detect and punish traders who have an informational or direct influence advantage.
Santos’ case suggests that lifetime exclusion could become the industry’s strongest deterrent against insider trading.


CASE STUDY | This Crypto Crime Could Set a Precedent Leading to Permanent Financial Ban for Founders




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Robinhood Chain is starting to look more like a memecoin casino than the tokenized-stock market it was built to host.
The two-month-old blockchain processed a record 5.52 million transactions on August 30 2026 while decentralized exchanges recorded about $875 million in trading volume.

But the clearest sign of what is driving activity:
Users launched roughly 22,600 tokens in a single day through the Pons launchpad.


Memecoin trading tools, GMGN and Pons, alongside Uniswap, generated about 88% of the chain’s $2.66 million in app revenue over 24 hours, according to DefiLlama data. That was roughly twice Ethereum’s app revenue and six times that of Base.
That is a striking departure from Robinhood’s original pitch.
Robinhood launched the Ethereum-compatible chain on July 1 2026 specifically to bring tokenized stocks and other real-world assets onchain.
Instead, speculative tokens have become the network’s dominant source of activity.

FINTECH | Robinhood Chain Sees Over $170 Million in Stablecoin Issuance, ~200K Users in First Week of Launch

The contrast was already visible in July:
Tokenized RWAs on the chain were worth about $12.8 million, including $10.7 million of stocks, while memecoins and stablecoins dominated activity and value.

The question for Robinhood is whether this is simply a bootstrapping phase, with memecoin traders providing liquidity, users, and transaction volume, or whether the chain is developing an entirely different identity from the regulated tokenized-equity marketplace it was designed to become.
For now, 22,600 tokens launched in one day is a pretty strong indication of where the market sees the opportunity.
This framing makes the 22,600-token figure the proof point, rather than just another activity statistic, while keeping the tokenized-stock thesis as the central tension.


CASE STUDY | Why This Trillion-Dollar Institutional Asset Manager Added MemeCoins into its Crypto ETF



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Tokenized stock transfer volume jumped 415% in 30 days to $29.5 billion underscoring a sharp acceleration in on-chain activity, data from RWA.xyz showed.
The surge was accompanied by a 209% increase in monthly active addresses to about 1.3 million while the number of tokenized-stock holders rose 167% to 2.36 million.

MILESTONE | Tokenized Stock Holders More Than Double in July 2026 as Monthly Volume Surges

But the underlying value of tokenized equities grew far more slowly.
The total value of tokenized stocks distributed on-chain rose just 1.45% over the past month to $2.54 billion although that figure is up roughly 637% from $344 million a year ago.
The divergence suggests that the boom in activity is not necessarily equivalent to a similar increase in capital entering the market.
Transfer volume can include wallet movements, settlements, custody transfers, and other on-chain activity, meaning the $29.5 billion figure should not be interpreted as $29.5 billion of stock trading.
Market concentration also remains high.


Ondo,
xStocks, and
bStocks
account for roughly 81% of distributed tokenized-stock value indicating that a relatively small group of platforms still dominates the market.

Direct stocks on Binance Reached $1 Billion in Assets Under Management (AUM) Within 30 Days of Launch#bStocks, tokenized 1:1 U.S. securities on Binance that trade 24/7, crossed $100 million in AUM within 2 weeks of launch.
47% of bStocks trading volume takes place outside U.S.… pic.twitter.com/gogmLni1QI
— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) August 25, 2026
The bigger test for tokenized equities will therefore be whether rising transaction activity translates into sustained growth in capital, repeat users, and genuine secondary-market trading.

TOKENIZATION | Coinbase Launches Tokenized U.S. Stocks on Base




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Stellar’s tokenized real-world asset market has grown roughly 360% this year to nearly $4 billion, highlighting the rapid expansion of blockchain-based traditional assets even as the broader crypto market remains volatile.
The network’s RWA value reached $3.996 billion at the end of August 2026, up from $868.8 million at the end of 2025, according to a Stellar-maintained Dune Analytics dashboard.
Growth is concentrated among a handful of issuers.
Spiko leads with $1.55 billion, followed by
Realiz at $559 million,
Tradable at $548 million,
Franklin Templeton at $546 million and
Ondo at $535 million.
Together, those 5 account for about 93% of Stellar’s tokenized RWA market.
The assets are not limited to U.S. Treasurys. Stellar has attracted private and public credit, non-U.S. government debt and other tokenized assets, with about $490 million in Mexican CETES and Brazilian government bonds alone as of August 20 2026.

LIST | Here Are 5 Verticals Driving Real-World Assets Tokenization in 2026

That puts Stellar in a stronger position among RWA networks, although Ethereum remains the dominant market, with about $17.3 billion in distributed RWA value, while BNB Chain has $5.7 billion and Solana about $4.1 billion, according to RWA.xyz data. Stellar ranks fourth at roughly $3.3 billion on the same measure.

The expansion is also increasingly institutional.

DTCC plans to connect its tokenization service to Stellar, while
Tradable has announced plans to bring up to $1 billion in private credit onto the network.


INSTITUTIONAL | World’s Largest Clearing, Settlement Organization by Transaction Value to Connect Tokenized Securities to Stellar




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Russia’s largest lender, Sberbank, plans to expand lending secured by cryptocurrencies, adding Ethereum and Tether’s USDT alongside Bitcoin once the assets are approved for public trading, senior executive Anatoly Popov told local media.

“We plan to accept not only Bitcoin but also Ethereum and the Tether stablecoin as collateral – of course, after the central bank allows them for public circulation.”

The move comes as Russia prepares to launch a regulated crypto market on September 1 2026 under legislation signed by President Vladimir Putin in August 2026. The Bank of Russia will determine which cryptocurrencies can be traded on regulated platforms.

REGULATION | Russian President Signs Russia’s First Comprehensive Crypto Law

The central bank has already identified
Bitcoin,
Ether and
USDT
as candidates, citing their market capitalization, trading volumes and long trading histories overseas.
Sberbank has already tested crypto-backed lending giving the bank practical experience before the new rules take effect.

In contrast, the bank is simultaneously taking a more cautious view of Russia’s digital ruble. Sber CFO, Taras Skvortsov, said the bank sees little evidence of demand from retail customers, companies or financial institutions.

“I don’t see any clear interest in this instrument, apart from the central bank’s,” Skvortsov said.

The contrast is significant:
While Russia is pushing its central-bank digital currency, its largest lender is preparing products around privately-issued cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.

The latest move comes just 2 months after the bank said it will be launching a crypto wallet and digital asset custody service by December 1, 2026. Domestic crypto payments would remain prohibited even as trading and custody become legal through licensed intermediaries.


REGULATION | Russia’s Largest State-Owned Lender Plans Crypto Wallet Rollout and Custody Services




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Circle has signed a partnership with Chelsea Football Club that will put its USDC stablecoin brand on the front of the English Premier League club’s men’s, women’s and academy shirts from the 2026/27 season.
The deal makes Circle Chelsea’s principal partner and official front-of-shirt sponsor, giving USDC visibility across one of the world’s biggest sports audiences.

The partnership marks a significant shift in how stablecoin companies are marketing themselves:
From crypto-native audiences toward mainstream consumers.


Circle says USDC is designed to enable dollar-denominated payments and transfers globally with the company positioning stablecoins as internet-based financial infrastructure rather than simply cryptocurrency trading assets.
USDC branding will debut on Chelsea’s men’s shirt in the club’s first Premier League home game of the season against Brighton.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
The move comes as stablecoins increasingly compete for a role in payments, remittances and cross-border transfers, making consumer recognition and trust a bigger part of the competition between issuers.
Chelsea Football Club is one of the biggest, most successful football clubs globally.
Founded in 1905, Chelsea is London’s most central football club, based at the iconic 40,000-capacity Stamford Bridge stadium. Nicknamed the Blues, the club lifted the Champions League for the first time in 2012 and domestically has won the Premier League five times, the FA Cup eight times, the Football League Cup five times and the Football League Championship once, in 1955.

Crypto Meets High Profile Sports – Inside the FTX and Crypto.com Million-Dollar PlayBook




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Cronos halted its blockchain after an attacker exploited Tectonic, its largest lending protocol, in an incident estimated to have affected about $75 million in assets.
The attack reportedly involved manipulating the price of Tectonic’s thinly traded TONIC token nearly 100-fold in about 20 minutes, allowing the attacker to use the inflated tokens as collateral to borrow more liquid assets.
Tectonic held about $121.7 million in total value locked before the attack, with roughly $82.7 million in active loans. Its TVL subsequently plunged to about $3 million.
Cronos validators moved quickly to halt block production leaving most of the exploit-linked funds stranded on the network. Only about $6 million was reportedly moved to Ethereum before the shutdown.

The incident highlights a recurring DeFi vulnerability:
Thinly traded tokens can become dangerous collateral when lending protocols rely on market prices that can be manipulated.

INSIGHTS | Why Smaller Coins Are Seeing Much Larger Gains

Tectonic has not confirmed the final losses or cause of the exploit while Cronos has not announced when the network will resume operations. Crypto.com said its centralized exchange and app were unaffected.

CASE STUDY | Bitcoin Payment Infrastructure Hit by Exploit Targeting Lightning Nodes




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TRON has surpassed 400 million accounts, up from 300 million in April 2025, while cumulative transactions have topped 15.2 billion and total transfer volume is nearing $30 trillion.

The key driver is USDT.

TRON now holds more than $94 billion of USDT, representing about 51.4% of circulating supply, making it one of the main settlement rails for dollar-based crypto payments.

MILESTONE | TRON Dominates Issuance, Settlement of World’s Largest Stablecoin in H1 2026

The growth is accelerating: TRON added its latest 100 million accounts in roughly 16 months after taking 4 years to reach its first 100 million.

Why?
Low transaction costs,
fast settlement, and
deep USDT liquidity
make TRON particularly useful for payments, remittances, and moving dollars across emerging markets.

TRON’s Usage is Rapidly Growing in Africa, Especially Nigeria, Says TRON CEO, Justin Sun

In other words, TRON is growing because people are increasingly using it as financial infrastructure for stablecoins rather than simply as a platform for trading TRX.


REPORT | B2B Transfers Dominate Stablecoin Transactions, TRON is the Preferred Blockchain




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Ripple has partnered with South Korea’s Jeonbuk Bank to deploy its Ripple Payments platform for cross-border transfers, marking the first time a Korean regional bank has adopted the service.
The deal is notable because Jeonbuk Bank is far more than a small local lender. The bank had 26.8 trillion won ($19 billion) in assets at the end of Q1 2026 and holds a dominant position in its home market with 21.3% of deposits and 17.3% of loans in North Jeolla Province. It operates 82 branches and is part of JB Financial Group, one of South Korea’s major regional financial groups.
Jeonbuk Bank will use Ripple’s blockchain-based payments infrastructure to offer 24/7 international transfers to business customers, including import-export companies, technology startups, and online content creators. Ripple says transactions can settle in seconds to minutes compared with traditional correspondent banking transfers that can take days.
The partnership is Ripple’s third major institutional deal in South Korea in 2026 so far following agreements with Kyobo Life Insurance and internet-only lender, Kbank, underscoring its push to embed its blockchain infrastructure deeper into the country’s mainstream financial sector.

BANKING | South Korea’s Largest Bank to Launch On-Chain Payment Service After a Successful Pilot

“With this partnership with Ripple, JB Jeonbuk Bank is ready to move beyond its role as a regional bank and emerge as a digital finance leader that meets global standards,” Jeonbuk Bank President Park Choon-won said.

The move matters for Ripple because winning a bank with meaningful dominance in a regional market provides a stronger institutional validation of its payments technology than a pilot with a small fintech while giving the company another foothold in one of Asia’s most active digital-asset markets.


STABLECOINS | Hyundai Becomes First Major South Korean Company to Adopt Stablecoins for Cross-Border Treasury Transfers





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International efforts to bring crypto into the global tax-reporting system may be leaving a large part of the market outside regulators’ view, highlighting a growing gap between traditional reporting rules and how crypto transactions actually take place.
Blockchain analytics firm, Chainalysis, estimates that at least $457 billion in potentially taxable crypto activity occurred on-chain globally in 2025. The figure covers
realised gains,
income from mining, staking, lending, and gambling, as well as
crypto-denominated payments across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Tron, BNB Smart Chain and Base.

But Chainalysis estimates that transactions within the practical reach of the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) accounted for only about 14% of that activity.
That would leave roughly 86% outside the framework’s reporting reach, including activity involving decentralised exchanges, peer-to-peer transfers, private wallets, on-chain income and crypto payments.
The gap matters because CARF was designed around a financial system in which an identifiable intermediary sits between the taxpayer and the transaction.
Under the framework, crypto exchanges, brokers, dealers and other qualifying service providers collect information about customers and report relevant transactions to tax authorities, which can then exchange that information with the taxpayer’s country of residence.
CARF covers
crypto-to-fiat exchanges,
crypto-to-crypto exchanges, and
certain transfers.
The problem is that much of crypto does not require such an intermediary.
A user can move assets from one self-custodied wallet to another, trade through a decentralised exchange, earn staking or lending income through on-chain protocols, or receive crypto payments without a traditional financial institution having custody of the assets or maintaining a conventional customer record.
This creates a structural weakness in a reporting system that relies heavily on intermediaries to identify taxpayers.

REGULATION | Nigeria Starts Implementing CARF Requirements by Tying Crypto Transactions to Tax and National IDs


The scale of the potential tax base is also significant.

The United States accounted for an estimated $112.6 billion of the $457 billion in potentially taxable activity in 2025.
North America accounted for $134.6 billion, followed by
The European Union at $125.1 billion, and
East Asia at $54.7 billion.


Importantly, Chainalysis describes the $457 billion figure as a lower boundary rather than a complete measure of crypto’s taxable economy. Its analysis excludes activity taking place entirely inside centralised exchanges as well as activity on other blockchains and transaction types not covered by its methodology.


That means the issue may be larger than the headline figure suggests.
The answer is unlikely to be simply expanding CARF to require every wallet or blockchain address to identify its owner. That would be technically difficult and could create serious privacy and compliance problems.
A more workable approach would combine CARF with blockchain intelligence and targeted enforcement.

REGULATION | The Kenya Capital Markets Regulator Floats Tender Notice to Procure a Blockchain Analytics System

The Bigger Problem
CARF is not necessarily failing because it was poorly designed. Its core assumption is that intermediaries are the best place to collect tax information. That remains true for centralised crypto businesses.
The problem is that crypto has evolved beyond that model.
The market increasingly combines regulated exchanges with self-custody, decentralised exchanges, smart contracts, stablecoins and peer-to-peer transfers. A tax system built primarily around identifiable intermediaries will inevitably struggle when economic activity moves outside them.

TAXATION | The African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) Urges for Practical, Implementable Approaches to Crypto Taxation at OECD Global Forum

The OECD itself recognises that crypto markets are evolving rapidly and says further work may be required to ensure sufficient coverage, including developments in decentralised finance.
The likely solution, therefore, is not to abandon CARF but to add an on-chain intelligence layer around it.
CARF can tell tax authorities what regulated intermediaries know about a taxpayer. Blockchain analytics can help show what happened beyond those intermediaries.
For governments, the real challenge is turning those two sources of information into a single picture of a taxpayer’s crypto activity.
Until that happens, the growing use of self-custody and decentralised finance could leave tax authorities with a paradox: blockchains make transactions more transparent than traditional finance, but tax authorities may still struggle to determine who owes the tax.


TAXATION | What You Need to Know About the European Union (EU) New Crypto Tax Reporting Requirements




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Ventures Platform, Africa’s leading seed-stage fund, has announced the final close of its second institutional fund – VP Pan-African Fund II (VP PAF II) – at $84 million, exceeding its original target of $75 million.
Achieved just three years after the close of Fund I and against a markedly more cautious global venture backdrop, the oversubscribed Fund II reflects growing global institutional confidence in Africa’s innovation economy, and confidence in Ventures Platform’s approach to identifying and backing exceptional founders from the earliest stages of company building.
The final close brings new institutional investors into the fund’s LP base, including
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD),
Norfund (Norway’s Development Finance Institution),
Alphatron, and
Ashesi University Foundation
a strong, reflection of the fund’s appeal to institutions committed to developing Africa’s innovation ecosystem.
The close also welcomed a consortium of new family offices.
These new investors join a group of existing LPs from the first close, including
Nigeria Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises (iDICE) program,
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group,
Standard Bank (South Africa),
British International Investment (BII),
Proparco (through the EU-backed Choose Africa VC programme),
Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Development Agency (MSMEDA),
AfricaGrow, and
Alder Tree Investment.
With the now-closed fund, Ventures Platform will double down on leading and catalysing pre-seed to series A investments with capacity to support exceptional portfolio companies through subsequent rounds, backing category-defining founders building solutions to some of Africa’s most pressing challenges and transformative opportunities. As the firm moves into this next phase of deployment, its focus remains on supporting mission-driven entrepreneurs who are using technology to drive economic prosperity, inclusion, and access across key sectors.

Speaking on the final close, Kola Aina, Founding and Managing Partner at Ventures Platform, said:
“This fund is ultimately not about the capital we’ve raised, but about the entrepreneurs we’re privileged to be able to back. Across Africa, we’re seeing a new generation of founders building enduring companies with greater technical depth, stronger governance, bigger ambition and a clear understanding of the markets they serve. These businesses are being built for resilience as much as growth, and we believe that positions them to create lasting value.
We’re deeply grateful for the confidence of our investors and excited to partner with ambitious founders solving meaningful problems across the continent”

Globally, growing recognition that some of the most compelling innovation opportunities will emerge from under-capitalised yet highly resilient markets continues to generate meaningful interest in Africa’s technology ecosystem. The fund positions Ventures Platform at the centre of enabling that opportunity.

Dirk Werner, Managing Director of Equity, EBRD, said:
“Innovation is increasingly shaping Africa’s economic future, yet venture capital remains underdeveloped relative to the scale of entrepreneurial activity across the continent. By investing in Ventures Platform Pan-African Fund II, we are helping to strengthen the market infrastructure that enables innovative businesses to access growth capital and scale their impact.”
FUNDING | LoftyInc Capital Closes $43 Million to Invest in Late-Seed Stage Startups Across Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, and Francophone Africa

Jerry Jansen, Investment Manager, Alphatron, added:
“We are excited to be part of the Ventures Platform journey and to support its continued commitment to backing Africa’s most ambitious founders. We see tremendous potential in Africa’s technology ecosystem and look forward to working alongside the firm to help build enduring businesses, unlock new opportunities, and create lasting positive impact across the continent.”
With over a decade of operation, Ventures Platform has consistently backed category-leading companies, including
_able,
OmniRetail,
PiggyVest,
Raenest,
Seamless Technologies (formerly SeamlessHR), and
Moniepoint.
The raise reflects the increasing depth of the African venture ecosystem and reinforces Venture Platform’s long-standing thesis of investing in market-creating innovations, and backing founders with capital alongside strategic guidance, networks and ecosystem development, from the early stages of company building.

2025 RECAP | Africa Tech Funding Grew 25% in 2025 Driven by Record Debt Activity, Says 2025 Partech VC Report

_________
About Ventures Platform
Ventures Platform is a leading seed-stage venture capital firm in Africa that discovers and invests in category-leading, market-creating innovations and supports them to scale.
The firm targets companies that bridge infrastructural gaps and promote prosperity by eliminating access barriers and reducing delivery costs across the continent by identifying companies that address non-consumption through market-creating innovations. Portfolio companies include
Raenest,
Fez Delivery,
LemFi,
Moniepoint,
OmniRetail,
Paystack,
PiggyVest,
Remedial Health,
SunFi,
ThriveAgric, and
Verto.


FUNDING | Egypt Attracted the Most Start-Up Funding in H1 2026 Across Africa




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Lisk is shutting down its blockchain on October 31 2026 bringing an abrupt end to a strategy that had increasingly positioned Africa and other emerging markets at the centre of its growth plans.
The Swiss blockchain project had made a significant push into emerging markets, including launching a $15 million fund in 2025 to back Web3 startups across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Lisk said the fund was aimed at finding companies solving real-world problems rather than funding speculative projects, targeting what it described as a largely overlooked emerging-market opportunity.

Africa became one of the most visible parts of that strategy.

FUNDING | Out of 4 Early Recipients of the $15 Million Lisk EMpower Fund, 2 Are African Startups

Lisk sought to build an ecosystem around startups using blockchain for payments, financial services, and other applications, while partnerships in markets such as Nigeria positioned the network as infrastructure for stablecoins and local-currency access. In February 2026, Nigerian crypto exchange, Quidax, partnered with Lisk to give developers access to stablecoins and local currencies through its infrastructure.

PRESS RELEASE | Quidax and Lisk Partnership Expected to Power a Regulated Digital Assets Infrastructure

That investment is now effectively being wound down.
Lisk says its Ethereum Layer-2 network has failed to generate enough revenue after about two and a half years while ecosystem incentives and the cost of maintaining the network contributed to an unsustainable model. The company is therefore abandoning the blockchain business and moving toward a financial-operations platform for businesses focused on bank accounts, stablecoins, payments, and money management.

LATEST |
THE LISK CHAIN IS WINDING DOWN
The #Ethereum L2 layer has also proposed the cessation of the #LISKDAO.@Lisk says the ‘Lisk Chain has been struggling with generating enough revenue that can flow back to the LSK token, and ecosystem incentives paid in LSK tokens have… pic.twitter.com/kPGCx8pfcg
— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) August 26, 2026
The reversal is particularly notable because Lisk had only recently doubled down on emerging markets. Its $15 million fund was launched less than a year ago with a mandate covering Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. The project had presented the strategy as a way to capture opportunities that traditional venture capital was missing in these markets.

LIST | 23 African Startups Successfully Complete the Inaugural Lisk Blockchain Incubation Hub, Receiving $196K in Grants

The shutdown also comes after Lisk had already abandoned its original Layer-1 blockchain and rebuilt as an Ethereum Layer-2 in late 2023. The network being closed is therefore itself a relatively young iteration of the project.

For Africa’s crypto industry, the episode highlights a broader problem:
Capital entering emerging markets does not necessarily translate into durable blockchain infrastructure. Lisk invested heavily in building an ecosystem around African and other emerging-market startups, but ultimately concluded that running its own blockchain could not produce an economically sustainable business.

EXPERT OPINION | Why the African Leapfrogging Narrative Has Failed Over a Decade Later

The company will now move in the opposite direction – away from operating a blockchain and toward using existing financial and blockchain infrastructure to provide business finance tools.
The Lisk DAO is also considering burning 100 million LSK, reducing the token’s total supply from 400 million to 300 million, while LSK holders on the Lisk Chain will need to migrate their tokens before the network closes.
For African Web3 founders, the significance goes beyond Lisk itself. One of the projects that had made some of the clearest financial commitments to building an emerging-market blockchain ecosystem is now retreating from the infrastructure it had spent years promoting.


REALITY CHECK | ‘We Made the Wrong Bet on Social,’ Base Blockchain Creator Admits




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Revolut has joined banks and payments firms developing stablecoins by launching EURR, a stablecoin pegged to the Euro.
EURR will initially be available to eligible customers in
Denmark,
Poland and
Portugal,
with Revolut planning to expand it to other European Economic Area markets later in 2026.


The token will be integrated into Revolut’s app allowing users to move between Euros and crypto on-chain. The company said EURR is the first step in a broader stablecoin strategy that will include tokens linked to other currencies.

Revolut said:
EURR is Revolut’s first stablecoin: designed to maintain a value of €1.00, and backed by reserves held and managed by our EU-licensed issuer, Bridge, in accordance with MiCA regulations.
EURR will give eligible customers an on-chain rail to move more easily between euros, crypto, external wallets, and supported blockchain networks.

The moves barely 2 months after the company delisted USDT and disabled deposits and transactions of the stablecoin on the platform over regulatory and risk concerns.

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

The launch comes as stablecoins continue to gain traction among traditional financial institutions with their potential use in cross-border payments, business transactions, and tokenized markets driving growing interest.
EURR is issued by Bridge, a Stripe-owned stablecoin infrastructure company, and is designed to comply with Europe’s MiCA framework.

Visa, Stripe Card Program to Enable ‘Custom Stablecoins for Businesses’ in 100+ Countries

Revolut’s move also highlights the growing competition for Euro-denominated stablecoins, a market still dominated by dollar-linked tokens. Circle’s EURC remains an established competitor, while other European banks and financial groups are also developing euro stablecoins.

STABLECOINS | Spain Leads European Retail Market for This Euro Stablecoin in Q1 2026

For Revolut, the key advantage is distribution:
Its existing consumer app gives the token immediate access to a large customer base, potentially making stablecoins part of everyday financial activity rather than a product confined to crypto exchanges.


STABLECOINS | Europe Should Develop More Euro-Backed Stablecoins to Counter Dollar-Pegged Assets, Says French Finance Minister




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Rain Protocol has used decentralized governance to resolve a dispute over its Credit Refund program, with token holders approving a settlement that has now resulted in the permanent destruction of 7.4 billion RAIN tokens.
The dispute emerged after the Rain Foundation identified coordinated activity involving multiple wallets that it said was designed to bypass the program’s $5,000-per-user allocation cap. Rather than decide the response internally, Rain put a proposed settlement to a vote by RAIN token holders, while Foundation and team-controlled wallets abstained.

CASE STUDY | This Major Blockchain Ecosystem is Facing Unintended Consequences of Decentralized Governance

The community approved a plan under which the Foundation committed $23 million in USDT to buy remaining locked refund allocations at $0.0031 per RAIN, with the purchased tokens earmarked for permanent removal from circulation.
Following the close of the claims period, Rain burned 7,419,354,838 RAIN, representing about 1.035% of circulating supply. The tokens were worth about $108 million at the time of the burn, according to the protocol.


The episode highlights a practical use of DAO governance:
Allowing token holders to determine how a contentious protocol-level dispute is resolved, while the final decision is executed transparently on-chain.

“Governance matters most when a decision has real consequences for the people participating in a protocol,” said Rain CEO, Roy Shaham.
“The community made the decision, the Foundation committed the capital, and this burn completes that decision transparently on-chain for anyone to verify. That is the standard decentralized governance should be held to as Rain moves into V2.”


CASE STUDY | This Leading DAO Exploit Shows the Biggest Risk to On-Chain Governance is Governance Itself




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The U.S. Treasury has expanded its Iran sanctions campaign to the country’s digital-asset sector saying cryptocurrency has increasingly become a tool of choice for Tehran and its networks to evade sanctions and move oil revenues.
Dubbed ‘Operation Economic Outcast,’ the goal is to ‘sever the economic lifelines that sustain the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)’ through ‘a sustained and systematic campaign to close every financial resource that supports the leading state sponsor of terror.’
Treasury says it has mapped the networks, facilitators, and financial channels that Iran uses to smuggle oil, evade sanctions, and fund terror.


The Treasury warned:
Any entity that facilitates money laundering or sanctions evasion on behalf of Iran risks being cut off from the U.S. financial system. Today’s announcement also expands secondary sanctions exposure for those who continue doing business with the Iranian regime and will accelerate the pace of U.S. enforcement.

Treasury said UAE-based broker, Ivan Obukhov, processed more than $100 million in cryptocurrency payments since 2023 to facilitate oil sales on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force.

REGULATION | U.S. Targets Iran’s Largest Crypto Exchange in Escalation of Financial Pressure Campaign

The move marks the first time Washington has applied a sectoral sanctions determination specifically to Iran’s digital-asset sector potentially exposing foreign crypto firms that support Iran’s crypto economy to secondary sanctions.
Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, said Iran had ‘chosen to co-opt digital asset technologies’ to evade sanctions and transfer wealth out of the country, adding that Treasury would ‘follow the money’ through both traditional banking channels and digital assets.

MILESTONE | Iran’s Move to Charge Strait of Hormuz Crypto Tolls a ‘Significant Milestone’ for State Level Adoption, Says Chainalysis

The action builds on Treasury’s earlier targeting of Iranian exchanges, including Nobitex, which it said processed more than 50% of Iranian digital-asset inflows in 2025 and facilitated transactions linked to sanctions evasion and the IRGC.

GEOPOLITICS | Iran’s Largest Crypto Exchange Has Processed Over $100 Million During the Wartime Period

The broader message from Washington is increasingly clear:
Crypto is no longer being treated simply as an alternative financial rail, but as a significant channel through which sanctioned states can move money outside traditional banking networks.

For global exchanges, OTC desks, brokers, and crypto infrastructure providers, the Iran case could therefore raise the cost of doing business with jurisdictions and counterparties exposed to sanctioned flows.


REGULATION | U.S. Sanctions 2 Crypto Exchanges for Facilitating Iran Transactions




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Crypto is increasingly becoming part of the financial infrastructure used by criminals to facilitate serious crimes but its transparency is also making those networks easier to trace.
A Chainalysis-led investigation, dubbed Operation Lighthouse, examined 29,120 cryptocurrency addresses and digital identifiers linked to more than 100 child sexual abuse material networks.
Working with Binance, Coinbase, law enforcement agencies, and other partners, the operation
generated 14,300 investigative leads
across 11 crypto exchanges and payment services,
identified more than 7,700 suspect accounts, and
linked suspects to 125 countries.

REGULATION | Binance to Block Transactions With 14 Crypto Platforms Following Regulatory Review

The development highlights a broader trend in crypto crime.

Chainalysis says cryptocurrency-related flows to suspected human-trafficking services rose 85% in 2025, reaching hundreds of millions of dollars. Stablecoins have become particularly important in some trafficking and illicit-service networks because of their price stability and ease of conversion.

2025 RECAP | Illicit Stablecoin Activity Surged to 5-Year High in 2025 with Over 80% Used for Sanctions Evasion

Crypto is therefore playing an increasingly visible role in the financing of criminal activity – from exploitation and trafficking to fraud and ransomware.

But there is an important paradox: the same blockchain transparency that attracts criminals can also expose them.

CRYPTO CRIME | Binance Processed Over 70,000 Law-Enforcement Requests Worldwide in 2025 Alone

Unlike cash, crypto transactions leave a permanent, traceable record. When blockchain analytics are combined with exchange data and law-enforcement intelligence, those records can turn anonymous-looking wallet activity into actionable leads.
The challenge is increasingly less about whether criminals use crypto and more about how quickly the industry and authorities can
identify,
freeze, and
disrupt
those financial networks.


CRYPTO CRIME | Illicit Crypto Volumes Hit ~$160 Billion in 2025, Says TRM Labs




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