News linked to this event type.
According to sources, the Trump administration plans to inform NATO allies this week that the United States will reduce its military forces available to assist European members of the alliance in major crises. Under the so-called "NATO Force Model" framework, member states identify a set of forces that can be deployed in the event of a conflict or any other major crisis, such as a military attack on a NATO member state. Sources say that although the specific composition of these wartime forces is a closely guarded secret, the Pentagon has decided to significantly cut its commitments. Trump has made it clear that he expects European nations to take over primary responsibility for Europe's security from the United States. The message to be conveyed to allies this week is a concrete signal that this policy is being implemented. Several details remain unclear, such as how quickly the Pentagon plans to transfer crisis mode responsibilities to European allies. However, sources indicate that the Pentagon plans to announce its intention to reduce commitments at a meeting of defense policy chiefs in Brussels on Friday.
centralized exchanges Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini are urging U.S. senators to remove a specific clause in the digital asset market structure bill. The clause restricts trading platforms from listing tokens that are susceptible to market manipulation.The exchanges have submitted amendment proposals requesting the removal of this restriction, arguing that this regulatory standard, derived from traditional commodity futures, would hinder the listing of low-liquidity small-cap tokens on compliant exchanges and limit industry innovation. (crowdfundinsider)
Checker, a stablecoin infrastructure startup, announced the completion of $8 million in pre-seed and seed funding. Participants include Galaxy Ventures, Al Mada Ventures, Framework Ventures, Bitso, Airtm, DFS Lab, Onigiri Capital, SNZ Capital, and Velocity. The project's primary business is helping financial institutions launch and scale stablecoins and related products through a single API.It is reported that Checker has processed over $3 billion in transaction volume in the past 12 months. The company plans to use the new funds to expand its financial institution network to Brazil, Kenya, Hong Kong, and the United States, and also intends to launch AI agents for client onboarding, compliance assessment, and treasury operations. (theblock)
The Zcash Foundation released its Q1 2026 report, disclosing total liquid assets of approximately $36.7 million, including roughly $12.11 million in cash, 506,556 USDC, 85,412 ZEC (valued at ~$21.2 million), 41.8 BTC (valued at ~$2.85 million), and 12.02 ETH (valued at ~$25,000). The Zcash Foundation added that, although the first quarter of this year saw personnel changes within the Electric Coin Company’s development team and governance-related disputes, network operations remained unaffected, with transactions and block production continuing normally. On the regulatory front, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has concluded its investigation without taking any enforcement action, thereby resolving long-standing regulatory uncertainty.
According to an official announcement, the blockchain infrastructure protocol project IOTA has named Kenya, Morocco, and Nigeria as the first countries to implement the ADAPT initiative. These three countries were selected through a rigorous evaluation process assessing their political commitment, regulatory readiness, maturity of digital infrastructure, and private-sector engagement. Launched in November 2025, the African Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade (ADAPT) initiative is spearheaded by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat and co-developed with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the World Economic Forum, and the IOTA Foundation. ADAPT aims to build shared digital infrastructure for intra-African trade, covering digital identity, cross-border data exchange, and payment interoperability.
According to Bloomberg, Senator Elizabeth Warren has questioned financial regulators’ decision to allow cryptocurrency companies to enter the banking system. The Massachusetts Democrat sent a letter to Jonathan Gould, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), noting that the agency has approved at least nine national trust charters for crypto firms that “appear unqualified.” Warren stated that these charters “appear to far exceed the narrow scope of activities permitted by law” and constitute “an apparent violation of the National Bank Act.” She questioned whether the OCC followed applicable legal requirements during its approval process and requested an explanation regarding the compliance of these crypto firms in obtaining bank charters.
Bybit has officially launched its new “Hold USD1 to Earn Tokens” campaign. Users only need to complete Level 1 KYC verification and hold at least 1 USD1 in their Bybit account to share daily WLFI rewards—no subscription or lock-up required; rewards are earned simply by holding. The campaign begins on May 19, 2026, at 10:00 UTC. During the campaign period, users can earn up to a 20% annualized return and compete for a total reward pool of up to 45,000,000 WLFI—climbing the USD1 Holding Leaderboard. USD1 is a regulated stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, fully backed 1:1 by short-term U.S. Treasury securities and cash equivalents, and strictly pegged to the U.S. dollar. WLFI is the governance token of the World Liberty Financial ecosystem, enabling holders to participate in protocol governance and influence the ecosystem’s strategic direction. In this campaign, WLFI rewards will be distributed daily to USD1 holders on the Bybit platform. During the campaign, the system will take a snapshot of each user’s eligible USD1 balance once every hour—24 snapshots per day. WLFI rewards are expected to be credited to users’ main account funding wallets by approximately 06:00 UTC the following day.
On May 19, Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) announced the revised Cabinet Office Ordinance on Electronic Payment Instruments and Other Related Businesses, explicitly including trust beneficiary rights established under foreign laws that are equivalent to Japanese regulatory frameworks within the definition of “electronic payment instruments” under Japan’s Act on Settlement of Funds. This provides a legal basis for the compliant circulation in Japan of trust-based stablecoins issued by specific foreign entities. The new rules will take effect on June 1, 2026, and concurrently clarify that such foreign trust beneficiary rights shall not be deemed securities under Japan’s Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.
According to The Block, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has officially approved a policy proposal to build a next-generation national financial system based on blockchain and AI. The proposal also supports advancing tokenized deposits and yen-denominated stablecoins. The report notes that this initiative is being formally advanced at the ruling party level and involves strategic directions for Web3 and financial infrastructure development.
According to Bloomberg, the Bank of England is considering an alternative proposal in response to industry opposition to its suggested cap on stablecoin holdings. Sarah Breeden, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, stated that the central bank is exploring the introduction of a temporary “safeguard” on the total issuance of stablecoins as an alternative to the existing proposal. This statement indicates that the Bank of England is reassessing its regulatory framework for stablecoins.
According to Korea Economic Daily, Bumo Sarang, South Korea’s seventh-largest pension relief company, invested 59.5 billion KRW of its operating funds last year in Bitmine, an Ethereum-themed stock’s daily double-leveraged ETF, resulting in a loss of 49.3 billion KRW (approximately USD 32.73 million). A comprehensive review of the 2025 audit reports from 75 pension relief companies revealed that 42.7% of these firms hold total assets lower than the prepaid funds owed to their clients—meaning they would be unable to fully refund all clients if all terminated their contracts simultaneously.
According to CoinPost, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Digital Society Promotion Headquarters’ “Next-Generation AI & On-Chain Finance Vision Project Team” released a policy proposal on May 19, advocating the integration of AI and blockchain to automate and enable 24/7 operation of decision-making, financing, and asset management—and designating finance as the “18th Growth Investment Sector.” Specific measures proposed in the document include: advancing tokenization of demand deposits at the Bank of Japan (including wholesale CBDC), with conceptual frameworks to be finalized by year-end; joint issuance of a stablecoin by Japan’s three major banks, targeting the launch of live operations by March next year; and promoting on-chain tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), such as accounts receivable and real estate. At the international cooperation level, the proposal calls for establishing an “AI & On-Chain Finance Asia Policy Dialogue Framework” and advancing cross-border settlements using yen-denominated stablecoins, thereby realizing the “Global SC Corridor Vision.”
According to Cointelegraph, the Bank of England, in collaboration with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has proposed extending the existing settlement infrastructure to operate nearly around the clock to facilitate the UK’s wholesale markets’ transition to tokenized finance.
Echo Protocol announced that the team has now regained control of the administrative keys and destroyed the remaining 955 eBTC held by the attacker. Additionally, the current exposure on Aptos is limited to approximately $71,000 in the Echo lending market and the Hyperion liquidity pool, and the team has observed no fund losses on Aptos. As a precautionary measure, the team has fully suspended Aptos bridge operations while the review remains ongoing. Echo Aptos Lending remains unaffected but has been paused for security reasons.
According to Cointelegraph, Republican lawmakers are pushing to include a provision in the 21st Century Housing Act that would permanently ban a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC). The current Senate version of the bill only imposes the ban until the end of 2030. Representative Mike Flood has introduced an amendment to make the ban permanent; the revised bill is expected to be voted on in the House this week. Representative Warren Davidson warned that the 2030 deadline effectively leaves a window open for CBDC implementation.
the U.S. state of Minnesota has officially passed and signed into law Bill HF 3709, allowing banks and credit unions to offer cryptocurrency custody services, further clarifying the business boundaries of financial institutions in the digital asset space. The bill, signed by Governor Tim Walz, will take effect on August 1, 2026. It stipulates that relevant financial institutions must establish risk management, internal control, and security policies before engaging in crypto custody, submit a notification to the state's Department of Commerce 60 days prior to launching services, and ensure that client assets are strictly segregated from the institution's own assets.The bill aims to enable local financial institutions to offer crypto services within a regulatory framework, reducing users' reliance on overseas or unregulated platforms and enhancing asset security. At the same time, Minnesota recently passed Bill SF 3868, which prohibits the establishment of new crypto ATMs within the state and requires existing machines to be phased out, sparking market concerns about further tightening of on-ramp access for cryptocurrencies.Currently, several U.S. states, including New York, Wyoming, and Virginia, already permit banks to engage in crypto custody services, indicating a divergence in regulatory paths at the state level. (The Block)
SUN.io has announced the completion of the Universal Router contract upgrade, further optimizing system performance and on-chain transaction experience while maintaining the same contract interface invocation method. After the upgrade, the new Universal Router contract immediately qualifies for up to a 99% energy subsidy; the deprecated legacy contract will gradually phase out its energy subsidy, while subsidy policies for other business-related contracts remain unchanged. This upgrade does not affect normal user operations. SUN.io will continue delivering a more stable, secure, and efficient on-chain trading environment.
: An opinion piece published in the French media *Le Monde* points out that France may have only about 6 months to seize the new wave of industrial revolution led by "agentic AI". Otherwise, it risks being marginalized in the global digital financial system. Several French crypto industry insiders argue that online transactions driven by AI agents are growing rapidly, with most settlements already completed via stablecoins. According to the *State of Crypto* report by Andreessen Horowitz, the annual transaction volume of stablecoins has reached approximately $46 trillion, nearly three times that of Visa and 20 times that of PayPal, establishing them as a key infrastructure in the global payment system.The article further points out that the x402 standard, promoted by Coinbase and adopted by Cloudflare, Google, and Visa, already supports AI agents in automatically completing payments via stablecoins, with cumulative transactions exceeding 119 million to date.However, in terms of the tax system, France's current provisions are criticized as being unable to adapt to this trend. The complex tax treatment between stablecoin exchanges and fiat withdrawals is believed to discourage the flow of funds back into the banking system, causing a large volume of digital asset transactions to remain within the stablecoin ecosystem for extended periods. As AI agents and stablecoin payments gradually converge, the global financial infrastructure is being restructured. If France fails to promptly adjust its regulatory and tax framework, it may miss out on the dividends of this new wave of the digital economy.
According to chart analysis released by independent analyst Markus Thielen on May 19, the current market capitalization of USDT has reached $189.8 billion, while that of USDC stands at $76.9 billion—both exhibiting long-term upward trends. However, since Bitcoin entered a correction phase in October last year, the total market capitalization of stablecoins has remained largely flat, indicating relatively limited inflows of new capital into the crypto market. Thielen noted that although there is a widespread belief that stablecoins will fully replace traditional payment networks, their primary use cases remain concentrated on crypto trading and portfolio management—still far from achieving mainstream payment adoption. While U.S. policy broadly supports stablecoin development—partly because their reserve assets are often reallocated into U.S. Treasury securities—the gap between current usage and true mainstream payment application remains substantial.
Odaily Echo Protocol posted on X platform, confirming a security incident on the Monad cross-chain bridge. An investigation is currently underway, and all cross-chain transaction functions have been suspended. The protocol stated that it will continue to provide updates through official channels once the investigation progresses.