Cointelegraph

Records from the UK’s Electoral Commission showed that BitMEX co-founder Ben Delo’s contributions to the country’s Reform party made up about three-quarters of the $7.3 million it received in the second quarter of 2026.
As of Thursday, the Electoral Commission showed that Delo had made two separate contributions to Reform UK of 1 million and 3 million pounds — about $1.3 million and $4 million, respectively — in April. While the political party also received significant contributions from entities and individuals between April and June 2026, Delo’s donation amounted to 74% of all funds reported in the second quarter.
Source: UK Electoral Commission
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, is currently under investigation after receiving millions of dollars’ worth of donations and gifts from two figures tied to the crypto industry: Christopher Harborne and George Cottrell. The UK lawmaker resigned his position as a member of parliament in July amid the crypto scandal, triggering a controversial by-election that Farage won 63% of the vote, ahead of satirical candidate Count Binface.
The contributions tied to the crypto industry have raised questions from many lawmakers about the influence of digital assets on UK politics. In July, Labour MPs were reportedly considering that a moratorium on crypto donations imposed in March be made permanent in response to what Farage called “gifts” from Harborne and Cottrell.
Delo also contributed $5.3 million to Reform UK in the first quarter of 2026.
BitMEX co-founders pardoned by US president last year
Delo was one of three figures tied to cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX who pleaded guilty to federal charges in the US related to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. While he agreed to pay a $10 million fine in 2022, the BitMEX co-founder did not serve time in prison. He and his colleagues Arthur Hayes and Samuel Reed received a pardon from US President Donald Trump in March 2025.
Magazine: BTC will hit $1M by 2030... but Arthur Hayes is buying ETH instead

Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) and BlackRock-backed tokenization platform Securitize signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to advance tokenization and digital asset infrastructure across the United Arab Emirates and Dubai.
The MoU will establish a collaborative framework to support regulated tokenization initiatives, foster institutional participation and strengthen Dubai’s digital asset ecosystem, the companies said in a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.
VARA and Securitize seek to support tokenization initiatives in Dubai, including projects initiated by VARA, to attract more talent and explore how tokenized financial products should operate under Dubai’s regulatory framework.
Tokenization initiatives are also gaining traction in other financial technology-focused jurisdictions. Days earlier, the London Stock Exchange reportedly partnered with crypto exchange Kraken to launch tokenized stock trading on the operator’s night-time trading venue to offer 24/5 trading.
Tokenization is evolving into “mainstream” financial infrastructure: Securitize CEO
Dubai emerged as one of the “world’s most forward-looking jurisdictions for digital asset innovation,” said Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize, emphasizing the importance of collaborating with regulators as tokenization moves from “concept to mainstream financial infrastructure.”
At the beginning of July, VARA granted its 50th virtual asset service provider (VASP) license to tokenization platform Tribe Tokenisation FZE.
When asked about the specific infrastructure goals, a spokesperson for VARA told Cointelegraph that the MoU’s main goal is to create a broad framework for collaboration between the two firms, rather than a specific technological stack or product. She told Cointelegraph:
“The intention is to combine VARA’s regulatory perspective with Securitize’s experience in institutional tokenisation to identify where collaboration can help support the development of trusted, regulated tokenised markets in Dubai.”
There won’t be any specific projects announced “at this stage” of the MoU, but the agreement will provide a collaborative framework to “support relevant tokenisation initiatives in Dubai,” added the spokesperson.
Total RWA asset value, all-time chart. Source: RWA.xyz
The announcement follows increasing investor demand for tokenized assets, which has seen total RWA holders rise 103% in the past 30 days to 3.2 million. The total value of tokenized assets also rose 2% to $38.5 billion in the same period, according to data provider RWA.xyz.
Securitize ranks as the world’s largest tokenization platform with $4.9 billion in tokenized assets under management (AUM). Ondo Finance ranks second with $3.5 billion.
Magazine: How Hong Kong is turning tokenized bonds into real market infrastructure

Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, expanding the chipmaker’s reach into the software that developers use to build and deploy artificial intelligence.
Hugging Face operates an open-source AI platform for sharing models, datasets and development tools. More than 18 million developers, researchers and creators use it to share over 3 million models, 500,000 datasets and 1 million applications, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in an announcement on Thursday.
“Hugging Face will remain an open platform for the entire AI ecosystem,” Huang said, adding that developers will remain free to choose their models, frameworks, cloud providers and computing platforms.
Nvidia hardware will not be required to build or deploy through Hugging Face, he added. Nvidia already publishes more than 500 models and 250 open datasets on Hugging Face. The company said Hugging Face will continue supporting models from other developers as well as multiple cloud and accelerator providers.
The acquisition comes about a month after Hugging Face disclosed a security breach involving an autonomous AI agent that gained unauthorized access to internal datasets and service credentials. The company said it found no evidence of tampering with public models, datasets or applications.

Student loan real-world asset (RWA) protocol Pencil Finance completed a $1 million onchain student loan cycle, offering financing to thousands of students in Southeast Asia who were underserved by traditional lenders.
Pencil said it completed its first fully onchain student loan cycle on the blockchain, where the platform deployed $1 million in capital as a lender that was repaid by borrowers to the bundle’s funders with yield, the company revealed in a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.
The bundle was funded in July 2025 by Animoca Brands, Open Campus and New Campus, structured as a senior tranche with fixed returns and a junior tranche with variable returns and first-loss risk.
The $1 million onchain loan cycle offered financing to about 6,600 students across 118 schools and universities in Southeast Asia. Pencil Finance claims this is the first-ever fully onchain lending cycle financing student loans transparently recorded on the blockchain network.
Of the 6,600 students, about 1,050 received direct funding. Pencil said the loans were designed for students underserved by traditional lenders, with 50% female borrowers and 93% stemming from lower-income households.
Tokenized RWAs are increasingly being used to issue or collateralize loans.
In July, Brazil’s B3 stock exchange issued a 100,000 Brazilian reais ($19,600) loan secured by 10 tokenized cows as collateral, where each cow received a unique digital token linked to an encrypted digital identity, while AI-powered smart collars from agriculture tech company Cowmed monitored each animal’s health.

London-headquartered multinational bank Standard Chartered has launched spot Bitcoin and Ether trading for institutional clients in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), through its entity regulated by the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).
The move makes Standard Chartered the first global bank to offer institutional digital asset trading in the region and the first Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB) with a similar offering, the bank said in a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.
Eligible institutional clients will be able to access spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) trading through Standard Chartered’s electronic trading channels integrated into the bank’s existing platforms.
The move expands Standard Chartered’s regulated crypto asset offering in the region. The bank previously launched digital asset custody services in the UAE in September 2024.
In June, Standard Chartered entered a banking agreement with CoinMENA, enabling the crypto exchange to use the bank to support fiat on- and off-ramps, client money accounts and virtual account-based transaction management.
Other cryptocurrency companies and trading platforms are also seeking regulatory approval to launch digital asset offerings in the UAE. In August, trading platform Capital.com revealed plans to offer spot crypto services to clients in the UAE and secured a virtual-asset license from the country’s Capital Market Authority (CMA).
Earlier in July, neobank Revolut received in-principle approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority to offer crypto-related services in the region.

A hacker linked to the third wave of Coldcard wallet thefts has started swapping stolen Bitcoin for Ether through THORChain.
Galaxy head of research Alex Thorn took to X on Wednesday to report that the third-wave exploiter moved about 10% of the stolen funds, with 90% remaining untouched. Thorn said it marked the first time funds from any of the three waves had moved onchain from the original hacker addresses.
“The hacker appears to be having some issues swapping all the funds through THORChain — they keep getting refunded and he keeps retrying,” he said.
Thorn said onchain analysts traced the funds through THORChain to a new Ethereum address, adding that he shared it with relevant authorities and crypto companies. It remains unclear whether the attacker will attempt to further obscure or move the assets through an exchange, he added.
The transfers follow a Coldcard exploit that Galaxy Research linked to the theft of at least 1,789 Bitcoin from 8,865 addresses, worth about $114.7 million at the time they were stolen. Blockchain security company CertiK reported in August that hackers linked to the exploit had sent 64 Bitcoin and 200 Ether to cryptocurrency mixers such as Tornado Cash.
The latest movement comes days after Thorn said the Coldcard attackers remained active, citing the Aug. 28 sweep of a deliberately weakened researcher wallet designed to test the attackers’ ability to find vulnerable keys.

Prediction market operator Kalshi will reportedly seek regulatory approval for a West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil perpetual futures contract that never expires.
The contract could be filed with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as soon as next week, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. It would trade 24 hours a day, five days a week, according to Reuters.
If approved, it would be the first oil-linked perpetual futures product to trade on a regulated US platform.
Cointelegraph has approached Kalshi for comment.
Perpetual futures, commonly called “perps,” are derivatives without expiration dates, allowing traders to maintain positions indefinitely without rolling them into new contracts.
In June, the CFTC sought public comments on extending standard futures contracts to 24/7 trading and allowing perpetual contracts linked to physically delivered or storable energy commodities, including crude oil.
In July, the regulator halted the self-certified listing of a CME Group contract that would have introduced 24/7 crude oil futures trading while it examined whether the product complied with federal commodities law.
On Aug. 24, Ondo Finance submitted three comment letters to the SEC and CFTC urging US regulators to bring perpetual futures tied to individual stocks onshore. Ondo argued that these products could operate under the country’s existing security futures framework without new rules.
Kalshi’s push into oil derivatives comes as its prediction-market business faces a separate jurisdictional dispute over whether federal commodities law preempts state gambling enforcement against event contracts traded on CFTC-regulated exchanges.
On Tuesday, a Michigan state court issued a preliminary injunction barring Kalshi from offering sports-related event contracts in the state and requiring it to maintain geofencing that blocks Michigan residents.
On Wednesday, New Jersey asked the US Supreme Court to resolve the jurisdictional dispute after federal appeals courts reached conflicting decisions in cases involving New Jersey and Nevada.

Australian crypto companies relying on temporary regulatory relief have until Sept. 30 to apply for a financial services license or risk penalties, including fines reaching 10% of their annual turnover.
On Wednesday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said businesses requiring an Australian Financial Services license must apply for one or seek changes to an existing license before the deadline. Firms requiring market or clearing and settlement licenses must also notify the regulator and hold a pre-application meeting.
Starting Oct. 1, companies that require authorization but have not met the conditions of ASIC’s no-action position could be operating in breach of financial services law. The regulator said they may face civil and criminal penalties.
The warning raises the stakes for crypto businesses that have not entered the country’s licensing process, as the regulator prepares to end temporary enforcement relief. ASIC said it recorded more than 45 digital asset-related license applications since it updated its guidance in October 2025.
On June 25, ASIC extended the relief period from June 30 to Sept. 30 and expanded it to cover crypto businesses operating as authorized representatives of licensed firms or through certain intermediary arrangements. At the time, the regulator said it had received about 30 applications.
The transition relief is separate from Australia’s Digital Asset Framework, which takes effect on April 9, 2027.

US-listed spot Ether and XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflow streaks ended on Wednesday, marking a reversal after sustained demand.
Spot Ether ETFs recorded $48 million in net outflows on Wednesday, ending 12 consecutive trading days of inflows, according to SoSoValue data. The funds had attracted $1.62 billion during the streak.
BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) led Ether fund outflows with $53.4 million, while the Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH) lost $26.2 million and the Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF (ETHE) shed $23.5 million, according to Farside Investors data. BlackRock’s staked Ether ETF (ETHB) partially offset those withdrawals with around $53 million in net inflows.
Spot XRP ETFs also posted $7.2 million in net outflows, ending an 11-session inflow streak. The streak brought in about $170 million, lifting cumulative XRP ETF inflows to about $1.68 billion.
Bitcoin ETFs moved in the opposite direction, drawing $101.2 million on Wednesday after $236.5 million in net outflows a day earlier.
The shift in ETF flows came as cryptocurrency prices declined, with Ether leading losses over the past seven days, down 3.4%, followed by XRP at 2.4% and Bitcoin at 1.3%, according to CoinGecko. At the time of publication, the three crypto assets traded at $2,407, $1.36 and $77,744, respectively.

Hyperscale Data has ended all Bitcoin mining operations at its Michigan facility as it prepares the site for an artificial intelligence data center customer.
On Wednesday, the company said that all Bitcoin miners at the facility were switched off following an inspection by the unnamed California-based neocloud provider. Hyperscale said it intends to sell the associated mining equipment.
Hyperscale said the customer has contracted for 20 megawatts (MW) of AI computing capacity under a 10-year master services agreement with two optional five-year extensions. The company estimated that the agreement would generate more than $1.2 billion over the maximum 20-year term. An additional 32 MW option could lift potential revenue above $3 billion, while the site is expected to support 340 MW.
The shutdown marks a further step in Hyperscale’s conversion of its Michigan facility from Bitcoin mining to AI infrastructure, a project it is also funding through sales from its Bitcoin treasury.
Hyperscale also cautioned that its expansion plans remain preliminary and subject to financing, approvals and other risks. The $1.2 billion estimate requires the customer to exercise both extension options, while the $3 billion projection also depends on it taking the additional capacity.
Hyperscale Data stock slides to record low
According to Yahoo Finance data, Hyperscale Data shares closed at $0.1984 on Wednesday, down about 17%, after touching an intraday low of $0.1932. The closing price marked a split-adjusted record low for the NYSE American-listed stock.
The decline came shortly after Hyperscale completed a one-for-five reverse stock split. Its shares began trading on a split-adjusted basis on Aug. 25, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Hyperscale has also reduced its Bitcoin holdings sharply while funding the AI buildout. On July 30, the company held about 1,006 Bitcoin and had sold 100 BTC while arranging a BTC-backed credit facility for the Michigan campus.
On Tuesday, the company said that it sold about 65 BTC for $5.1 million during the week ending Aug. 30. Hyperscale said the proceeds would provide additional capital for the Michigan development.
BitcoinTreasuries.NET now lists Hyperscale as holding 215 BTC, worth about $16.7 million. This represents a decline of about 79% from the amount cited in July and leaves it ranked 84th among public companies tracked by the platform.
Magazine: BTC will hit $1M by 2030... but Arthur Hayes is buying ETH instead

Federal law enforcement officials, working with cybersecurity technology company CrowdStrike, announced action against entities behind malware that enabled the theft of $150,000 in cryptocurrency.
In a Tuesday notice, the US Justice Department said it had disrupted the Sality botnet and malware in an international effort with Bulgarian, Hungarian and Romanian officials, as well as private sector partners CrowdStrike and the Shadowserver Foundation. US officials said that Sality was responsible for installing malware on compromised devices since 2003, resulting in crypto theft and cyberattacks.
CrowdStrike reported that in the previous eight years, the entities behind Sality used EggJagger, a “clipjacking tool that monitors the clipboard for cryptocurrency wallet addresses and silently replaces them with addresses controlled by the operator,” to steal at least 12.1 million rubles, or about $150,000, in cryptocurrency. According to the company, the value of the “never-spent” digital assets peaked at about $1.5 million in January 2025.
“When a victim copies a Bitcoin or Ethereum address to make a payment, the funds are redirected,” said CrowdStrike, explaining the technique behind the theft.
According to CrowdStrike, the criminals behind Sality “lost the ability to communicate with infected machines” as a result of authorities’ efforts to disrupt the network. US officials and the company said Sality was used to steal crypto, while about 15,000 infected computers formed part of a peer-to-peer botnet that checked whether its systems were online every 40 minutes.

New Jersey’s Attorney General and the state’s interim director for the Division of Gaming Enforcement have officially petitioned the US Supreme Court to hear a case aimed at resolving whether state authorities or federal agencies have jurisdiction over prediction market companies.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Jennifer Davenport and gaming enforcement interim director Mary Jo Flaherty filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the US Supreme Court over New Jersey’s enforcement against prediction market platform Kalshi over sporting event contracts. Officials cited civil cases brought by gaming authorities in “at least 20 states,” seeking the highest court in the US to decide whether prediction market companies could be in compliance with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) while violating state laws.
“Companies like Kalshi claim to offer legal sports betting in all 50 States, but they refuse to follow the gambling laws of any State,” said Davenport. “These companies have no right to offer their sports bets without following state law, which is why dozens of States across the ideological spectrum have opposed them [...] We’re calling on the Supreme Court to resolve this issue and recognize that Congress did not silently make the sports-betting industry immune from state law.”
Source: New Jersey Attorney General
Citing New Jersey’s enforcement against Kalshi, the petition presented the Supreme Court with the question of “whether the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act preempted States from regulating sports bets that occur within their jurisdictions if those bets are offered on markets registered with the [CFTC].” Cointelegraph reached out to the CFTC for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
The petition challenges an April opinion from the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in which judges ruled 2-1 against New Jersey’s gaming authorities, saying Kalshi’s argument that the company had a ”reasonable chance of success” in claiming that the CFTC’s Commodity Exchange Act preempted state law. The petition specifically challenged the CFTC’s claim that sports bets on prediction market platforms amount to “swaps” under the agency’s purview and stated, “federal law does not preempt state sports-gambling laws regardless.”
What are the potential consequences for Kalshi and other prediction markets?
“Because federal law prohibits trading swaps off CFTC-registered markets, a victory for Kalshi would mean that all sports gambling off such CFTC-registered markets would seemingly become illegal even if state law allows it,” said the New Jersey AG’s announcement on the petition.
Kalshi spokesperson Dani Lever told Cointelegraph that the company disagreed with New Jersey’s decision to appeal to the Supreme Court, saying that it could not be “regulated by 50 different regulators.“
”We remain confident in the lower courts’ rulings, and nothing in New Jersey’s filing today changes our view,” said Lever.
Event contract on when the US Supreme Court will hear a prediction markets case. Source: Polymarket
Whether the Supreme Court justices will take up the issue of prediction markets is unclear. Many experts have been speculating that the justices could weigh in on a case that went to the appellate court in Nevada. Whether the court chooses the Kalshi case in Nevada, the one in New Jersey or an enforcement action against a different company down the line, any potential decision could decide which authorities can regulate prediction markets.
Magazine: Who is legally liable when an AI agent goes rogue?

Ondo Finance is urging US regulators to bring perpetual futures tied to individual stocks onshore, arguing that the products can already operate under the country’s existing security futures framework without new rules.
In three Aug. 24 comment letters to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Ondo argued that existing rules can accommodate perpetual stock futures while also accounting for modern margining practices and onchain market data.
Ondo said its Panama-based affiliate already offers stablecoin-settled perpetual futures on individual US-listed stocks outside the United States, with the platform recording $8 billion in cumulative trading volume as of Aug. 14, around six weeks after its launch.
Ondo ranks fourth among tokenized RWA managers by distributed value. Source: RWA.xyz
The company argued that scheduled funding payments can keep perpetual contracts aligned with the price of their underlying stocks, performing a similar function to expiration in traditional futures.
“Nothing in the statutory definition of a security futures product requires a fixed expiration date,” Ondo said in its product-classification letter.
Ondo also noted that many of the stocks underlying offshore perpetuals are principally traded on US exchanges. “Bringing that activity back to the U.S. should not be an open question; it’s something both agencies should actively pursue,” the company said.
Ondo is among the largest managers of tokenized real-world assets, ranking fourth with about $2.6 billion in distributed value as of Wednesday, according to RWA.xyz data.
US regulators look to modernize market rules
Ondo’s proposal comes as US regulators reconsider how existing market rules apply to onchain products, including perpetual futures and tokenized securities.
President Donald Trump said in August that CFTC Chair Michael Selig was working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a “fully compliant and legal fashion.” Hyperliquid is best known for its onchain perpetual futures market, though neither the CFTC nor Hyperliquid has publicly detailed how US access would work.
HYPE, the native token of Hyperliquid, jumped more than 20% following Trump’s comments and has gained nearly 49% over the past month to trade around $81 on Wednesday, according to CoinGecko data.
HYPE has gained nearly 49% over the past month. Source: CoinGecko
The SEC, which oversees securities markets, and the CFTC, which regulates US derivatives markets, have also stepped up coordination this year, signing a memorandum of understanding in March to harmonize oversight in areas where their jurisdictions overlap.
On Tuesday, the SEC proposed overhauling its decades-old transfer agent framework, citing growing demand for blockchain-native recordkeeping and tokenized securities in US markets as the agency reexamines rules built for older market infrastructure.
Magazine: BTC will hit $1M by 2030... but Arthur Hayes is buying ETH instead

Bitcoin (BTC) sold off into the early European trading hours on Wednesday to hit local lows of $76,400, per data from CoinGecko.
Key points:
Bitcoin’s apparent demand indicator turns negative again, with BTC price dropping to a local low of $76,400 before reclaiming $77,000.
USD/JPY drops sharply to 158.5, sparking speculation that another yen intervention has taken place.
Asian equities sell off sharply as South Korea’s KOSPI falls 4.0% to 6,562.72 and Japan’s Nikkei 225 drops 2.9% to 64,325.64.
Bitcoin’s apparent demand flips negative again
The move in BTC came after US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded outflows of $236 million the day prior. Data from CryptoQuant now shows Bitcoin’s apparent demand turning negative once more after a brief reprieve during the August rally.
Bitcoin price and apparent demand, 30-day change. Source: CryptoQuant
The indicator is inspired by similar metrics from commodity markets and measures the difference between newly mined issuance and changes in inactive supply. Positive demand implies that old coins are waking up and the market is absorbing them along with new issuance. This is taken to be a sign of active spot demand. Negative readings mean coins are aging into dormancy faster than miners issue them.
At the time of writing, BTC has reclaimed $77,000, but remains pinned under a cluster of resistance that we have previously reported on.
Bonds and Asian equities sell off
The global bond rout that Cointelegraph reported on Monday eased slightly as the US 10-year yield briefly dipped below 4.8%. There was inorganic price action in the USD/JPY pair at 13:00 UTC, which commentators widely took as a sign of another central bank intervention. USD/JPY declined to 158.5, retreating from the psychological 160 level widely seen as a line the Bank of Japan (BOJ) will defend. At the time of writing, no official announcement on the matter has been made.
USD/JPY trading pair one-day chart. Source: TradingView
Asian equities, meanwhile, suffered steep declines, likely driven by soaring oil prices and further profit-taking in the AI sector. South Korea’s KOSPI led the decline, falling 4.0% to close at 6,562.72 as chipmakers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics shed 4% and 4.7%, respectively.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 2.9% to 64,325.64, dragged down by tech heavyweights including SoftBank Group, an OpenAI investor. Taiwan’s TAIEX rounded out the losses with a 1.7% drop. Back in July, Cointelegraph reported on the first cracks beginning to show on the US side of the AI trade, as credit spreads on hyperscalers rose significantly.

Member nations of the Group of 20 (G20) agreed on policies supportive of the potential of digital assets in “broad-based economic growth.”
In a speech released by the US Treasury Department on Tuesday, the G20, currently chaired by the United States, said that all members had agreed with statements recognizing the “transformative role” of digital asset innovation. The body also called on countries to improve cross-border payments and facilitate the transmission of financial services-related data.
“We commit to advancing responsible and effective regulatory and supervisory frameworks that preserve financial stability, support economic growth, and establish clear pathways for sound digital financial and digital assets innovation, while considering cross-border opportunities and challenges as appropriate,” said the G20 statement.
The G20 added that it was awaiting results from the Financial Stability Board “related to global stablecoin arrangements and stablecoin data sources, availability, and potential challenges.”
The statements signaling support for digital asset policies and frameworks followed the US and other member countries establishing laws and regulations to address cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, from the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) rules in the EU to US laws like the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.

Full Sail, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol on the Sui blockchain, plans to shut down after a security incident involving oracle provider Switchboard resulted in user losses.
Full Sail took to X on Tuesday to announce that the protocol is winding down, immediately disabling new deposits and liquidity provider (LP) reward claims. Regular pools will move to withdrawal-only mode after final security checks, with compensating users the protocol’s top priority, Full Sail said.
The decision follows a security incident last week that affected Full Sail’s automated vaults following a suspected compromise of Switchboard’s oracle infrastructure.
Full Sail first disclosed the incident on Saturday, saying it had confirmed a loss of funds and paused deposits and withdrawals while it investigated. Switchboard said in an X post on Saturday that it was investigating a potential compromise of its Move-based implementations and had halted its network on Aptos, Sui, IOTA and Movement.
Full Sail later said an attacker removed about $91,000 from three of its vaults. Virtue, a stablecoin lending protocol based on IOTA (IOTA), separately reported about $455,000 in losses and said the backing of its VUSD stablecoin had been impaired.
Full Sail said it will use its remaining protocol-owned liquidity to compensate users, while the team will cover any shortfall so community depositors are repaid first. The protocol expects to publish withdrawal and claim instructions within the coming days.

Hashkey joined the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s (DTCC) Digital Assets Advisory Services Industry Working Group as its first Asian digital asset service provider.
Hashkey joins over 100 other global financial institutions and asset managers to help define how tokenized assets are issued, settled and safeguarded at an institutional scale. Other participants include JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the company revealed in a Wednesday announcement.
DTCC is a core post-trade infrastructure provider in traditional financial markets. Its working group was formed to connect traditional finance with decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure. DTCC plans to launch access to tokenized securities in October, in conjunction with the working group. DTCC custodies $114 trillion in liquid assets, including stocks and exchange-traded funds.
In December, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a “no action” letter to a DTCC subsidiary, enabling it to offer a new securities market tokenization service.
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said that the green light for the DTCC’s pilot is only the beginning, as the SEC will consider an innovation exemption to enable builders to start “transitioning our markets onchain,” without being burdened by “cumbersome regulatory requirements,” according to a Dec. 12 X post.
Atkins first proposed an innovation exemption for tokenization during his remarks at the Crypto Task Force Roundtable on DeFi on June 9.

Two Thai businessmen sued stablecoin issuer Tether in a New York district court, claiming it illegally froze $42.4 million in Tether USDt (USDT) in October, as part of a broader case tied to a pig butchering scheme.
In a Monday court filing, the plaintiffs claimed that Tether illegally froze the $42 million without a warrant in October 2025, following an informal request from US Homeland Security Investigations.
Authorities in the Eastern District of North Carolina only issued a seizure warrant for the funds later in February 2026, as part of a $61 million pig butchering case. The warrant directed the burn and reissuance of the tokens to a government wallet.
While the plaintiffs didn’t dispute their involvement in the investment scam, the lawsuit tests the freezing authority of stablecoin issuers. It also requests that authorities unfreeze the funds and pay potential punitive damages.
“The complaint is NOT denying that the government claims these coins are scam proceeds. It is saying Tether locked secondary-market holders first, kept earning Treasury yield on the reserves, and only later received a warrant that still does not, in plaintiffs’ view, authorize a private issuer to freeze, burn, or reissue their tokens,” wrote corporate and intellectual property attorney Ariel Givner in a Wednesday X post.
In a separate case in February, a US court sentenced a dual national of China and St. Kitts and Nevis to 20 years in prison for orchestrating a $73 million pig butchering scam.

Remixpoint, one of Japan’s largest corporate Bitcoin holders, sold all its altcoins, leaving about 1,506 BTC ($115 million) as its only cryptocurrency holding as it concentrates its crypto strategy around Bitcoin.
Remixpoint sold its Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP) and Dogecoin (DOGE) holdings for a combined 878.8 million yen ($5.5 million), generating a 117.8 million yen ($736,000) gain, according to a Wednesday company disclosure.
The company recorded gains on its ETH, SOL and XRP sales but sold its DOGE holdings at a 3.26 million yen ($20,000) loss. The company completed the sale on Tuesday and expects to book the gain in the second quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2027.
Remixpoint ranks as Japan’s third-largest corporate Bitcoin holder. Source: Bitcoin Treasuries
Before the sale, Remixpoint held about 901 ETH, 13,920 SOL, 1.19 million XRP and 2.8 million DOGE. Those holdings would be worth about $2.14 million, $1.36 million, $1.57 million and $226,000, respectively, based on CoinGecko prices at the time of publication.
Remixpoint said it decided to sell the altcoins after considering market conditions, their risk-return characteristics and its financial strategy. Remixpoint said focusing its crypto portfolio on Bitcoin aims to “clarify investment strategy” and “improve capital efficiency.”
Remixpoint has also been generating returns from its Bitcoin holdings. The company earned 14.92 BTC from lending between Feb. 24 and Aug. 31, valued at 164.2 million yen ($1 million), according to the disclosure.

Thailand is tightening oversight of crypto transfers, including transactions involving self-custodial wallets, as it moves to align with global Anti-Money Laundering (AML) standards.
Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued new Travel Rule regulations requiring digital asset operators to collect information about parties involved in crypto transfers, the regulator announced Wednesday.
The rules will take effect on Feb. 27, 2027, giving crypto businesses nearly six months to develop systems for transmitting, receiving and monitoring transaction information.
Thailand joins a growing global push to track who sends and receives crypto, as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) estimated that 83% of surveyed jurisdictions had passed Travel Rule legislation as of 2026.
Self-custodial wallets face ownership checks
Under the new framework, Thai digital asset operators must verify the ownership or control of self-hosted, or self-custodial, wallets when customers send crypto to or receive it from those wallets.
Unlike wallets managed by centralized exchanges (CEXs) or custodians, self-custodial wallets give users direct control over the private keys needed to access their crypto.
Operators must also retain information accompanying every digital asset transaction for at least five years and make the records available for regulatory examination.
The requirements put more responsibility on crypto companies to identify the parties behind transfers, including those involving self-custodial wallets. Pornanong Budsaratragoon, secretary-general of Thailand’s SEC, said the rules aim to “reduce the risk of digital asset operators being used for money laundering and terrorist financing.”
Thailand moves from consultation to final rules
The final rules follow two rounds of public consultation this year, starting with proposed principles in March and a draft notification in June. The SEC said most stakeholders supported the proposals.
The Travel Rule comes as Thailand considers expanding access to other regulated crypto products. On Monday, the SEC proposed allowing intermediaries to offer retail investors access to certain crypto derivatives traded on regulated overseas exchanges.
Days earlier, the regulator advanced draft rules for spot Bitcoin and Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), while also seeking feedback on requirements for foreign digital asset custodians used by funds investing in crypto.
Magazine: Thailand’s 0% crypto tax. Bitcoin Red Team forced to use Chinese AI: Asia Express