News linked to this event type.
according to a UK police announcement, former World Athletics Championships 4x100m relay gold medalist and British sprinter CJ Ujah, along with nine other individuals, has been charged with "conspiracy to defraud" in connection with a cryptocurrency fraud case.Police stated that the criminal gang posed as police and cryptocurrency company personnel to conduct phone scams against multiple victims, tricking them into disclosing critical wallet security information, including seed phrases. The perpetrators then transferred the victims' crypto assets, with one victim losing over £300,000. The case was cracked following a joint investigation by the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU) across Kent, Essex, and London. The ten suspects have appeared in court, with Ujah released on bail until a further hearing on May 28.Ujah, now 32, won a 4x100m relay gold medal for Team GB at the 2017 World Championships and also claimed the Diamond League title that same year. In 2022, he was suspended for 22 months due to a doping violation, which was later attributed to contamination from a supplement causing an adverse analytical finding. In addition to Ujah, another British sprinter, Brandon Mingeli, is also on the list of those arrested and is currently in custody pending trial. (The Guardian)
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong recently issued a public notice warning investors to be vigilant against certain unlicensed platforms and related marketing activities, specifically naming HabitTrade. In response, HabitTrade issued a statement clarifying that it is a licensed Australian brokerage firm and a compliant financial services platform, and that it does not conduct any regulated business in Hong Kong nor promote or provide related services to the Hong Kong public. The statement further notes that certain third-party promotional content, video materials, and traffic-driving activities circulating in the market do not represent HabitTrade’s official position. The company reserves the right to pursue legal action against any unauthorized use of its brand, technical infrastructure, or partnership affiliations for misleading or non-compliant promotional purposes. HabitTrade stated that it remains committed to regulatory compliance as its top priority and will cooperate fully with relevant regulatory authorities in jurisdictions where it operates to conduct necessary investigations.
Odaily, Aptos Foundation has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with NETSTARS, a Japanese QR code payment service provider, to jointly explore multi-chain payment solutions. The two parties plan to integrate the high-performance Aptos L1 blockchain into NETSTARS' existing cashless payment system, introducing stablecoin payments to its merchant network, with a focus on instant settlement, low costs, and a compliant embedded transaction experience.
Odaily Odaily News: At the Consensus Miami 2026 conference, executives from MoonPay, Ripple, and Paxos stated that regulatory clarity is driving accelerated institutional adoption of stablecoins. However, infrastructure, privacy protection, and real-world use cases remain the core challenges facing the industry.Richard Harrison, Vice President of Banking and Payment Partnerships at MoonPay, noted that the GENIUS Act provides a "license" for enterprises to enter the stablecoin space, making it easier for traditional financial institutions to participate in the stablecoin market. He pointed out that stablecoins can significantly improve the efficiency of cross-border payments, but their share in global remittances remains low, predicting it could rise to approximately 10% in the next five years.Jack McDonald, Senior Vice President of Stablecoins at Ripple, stated that institutional clients are more focused on regulatory compliance, custody security, and trusted counterparties, rather than simply the market capitalization of stablecoins. He mentioned that Ripple places greater emphasis on the practical utility of stablecoins in scenarios such as payments, enterprise cash flow management, and capital market collateral.Brent Perrault, Senior Software Engineer at Paxos, pointed out that on-chain privacy issues have not yet been effectively addressed, as public blockchains can expose transaction amounts and fund flows. He believes that the key to future competition among stablecoins will be trust, distribution capabilities, and user incentive mechanisms.Harrison also compared stablecoins to electric vehicles, stating that "the product itself is already viable, but true mass adoption still depends on supporting infrastructure." This includes real-world consumer use cases such as paying rent or buying coffee with stablecoins. (CoinDesk)
According to Cointelegraph, after a 15-month investigation, police in New South Wales, Australia, seized 52.3 bitcoins—valued at approximately AUD 5.7 million (about USD 4.1 million)—and arrested two suspects allegedly operating a dark web marketplace in Ingleburn, Sydney. Authorities stated that the seized bitcoins are suspected proceeds from illicit dark web activities linked to drug and weapons trafficking. The operation, conducted by the State Crime Command’s Cybercrime Squad (Strike Force Andalusia), is regarded as one of the largest dark web-related cryptocurrency seizures ever carried out in Australia. Meanwhile, AUSTRAC has recently intensified its anti-money laundering (AML) oversight of domestic virtual asset service providers and cryptocurrency exchanges.
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong has issued a warning, adding two unlicensed platforms—StableStock and HabitTrade—to its warning list. The SFC noted that online videos are inducing the public to use the StableStock platform, which claims users can subscribe to Hong Kong IPOs using virtual assets and states it is collaborating with HabitTrade. The SFC emphasized that neither entity holds an SFC license and therefore must not engage in any regulated activities in Hong Kong or promote their services to the public.
According to Decrypt, Australia’s financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC has launched two targeted regulatory initiatives against the virtual asset industry, focusing on anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) risk management practices of relevant businesses. These initiatives cover 36 cryptocurrency-to-fiat over-the-counter (OTC) trading operators and 27 domestic cryptocurrency exchanges. Australia’s new regulations have expanded oversight from traditional cryptocurrency exchanges to Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), including custodial and brokerage services. The Travel Rule for virtual asset transfers will become mandatory on July 1.
CoinMarketCap’s April 2026 Exchange Monthly Report shows that the total trading volume across the 12 tracked cryptocurrency exchanges amounted to $4.50 trillion, with Binance holding a 36.23% market share. Overall derivatives trading volume was 5.38 times that of spot trading, and the combined proof-of-reserves across eight exchanges totaled $220.07 billion. The report also notes that Coinbase surpassed Binance in BTC spot order book depth within ±2%, becoming the exchange with the deepest liquidity; for ETH spot liquidity, Binance remains the leader. On the regulatory front, Binance is advancing its MiCA authorization application in Greece, while Gemini completed its withdrawal from the UK, EEA, and Australian markets on April 6.
According to The Block, South Korea’s National Assembly has passed an amendment to the Foreign Exchange Transaction Act, requiring enterprises engaged in cross-border inflows and outflows of crypto assets to register with the Minister of Economy and Finance to strengthen systematic oversight of cross-border crypto asset flows. The amendment introduces a new definition of “virtual asset transfer business,” covering activities involving the transfer of crypto assets between South Korea and overseas jurisdictions through buying, selling, or exchanging—such as those conducted by cryptocurrency exchanges and digital asset custodians. Separately, it is reported that South Korea’s Financial Services Commission plans to extend the Travel Rule to all crypto transactions; South Korea also intends to impose a 22% tax on crypto asset gains exceeding 2.5 million KRW starting January 2027.
: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde stated that even stablecoins denominated in euros could pose risks to financial stability and the transmission of monetary policy. (Cointelegraph)
According to Bloomberg, European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde stated in a speech delivered on May 8 local time that even euro-denominated stablecoins would pose risks to financial stability and monetary policy transmission, and she questioned the necessity of introducing such instruments. Lagarde noted that while euro stablecoins might help reduce financing costs in the euro area and enhance the euro’s global influence, the associated trade-offs “cannot be ignored.”
According to Caixin, YF Financial’s gold token product has no secondary market, and the physical gold is stored in a Hong Kong vault. The product will be available only to users who have completed Hong Kong’s Professional Investor (PI) certification. A relevant official stated that physical-gold-backed token products are “in essence not financial leverage, but rather the digitization of assets.” In February this year, eight Chinese government departments—including the People’s Bank of China—jointly issued the “Notice on Further Preventing and Addressing Risks Related to Virtual Currencies and Other Matters,” which for the first time incorporated Real World Assets (RWA) into the regulatory framework at the supervisory level, adopting an overall approach of “strict prohibition domestically and strict oversight overseas.” Earlier reports indicated that YF Youyu—a subsidiary of YF Financial, in which Jack Ma holds an indirect stake—launched a physical-gold-backed token product, with physical gold as its underlying collateral asset; each unit of the product corresponds to 1 gram of LBMA-certified physical gold with 99.99% purity.
According to CoinDesk, at the “Perp DEX Explosion: Bullish Volumes and Bear Market Resilience” panel at Consensus Miami, several industry insiders stated that institutional investors are still largely avoiding decentralized exchanges offering perpetual futures (Perp DEXs). Veteran trader Wizard of SoHo pointed out that Drift’s recent multi-million-dollar hack highlights security vulnerabilities in the DeFi ecosystem, making secure onboarding of institutional capital a core competitive focus for major Perp DEXs. Anderson of Canary Labs expressed concern about DeFi’s current security posture, noting that large institutions face significantly greater challenges adopting decentralized exchanges compared to centralized platforms. Additionally, the structural tension between DeFi’s permissionless, open design and institutions’ stringent KYC compliance requirements is seen as a key barrier to scaling adoption. Michaël van de Poppe, founder of MN Fund, shared his views on AI-powered trading tools, stating that AI agents represent an evolutionary extension of algorithmic trading—and that trading will increasingly become fully automated.
According to ZDNet, the South Korean government plans to impose taxes on virtual assets starting in January next year, but faces opposition from the opposition party, increasing policy uncertainty. Moon Kyung-ho, head of the Income Tax Division at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, made the government’s first official statement on the matter during a National Assembly discussion, affirming that taxation on virtual assets will proceed as scheduled beginning January 1, next year, emphasizing that “income must be taxed.” Under the current amendment to the Income Tax Act, gains exceeding 2.5 million KRW from the transfer or lending of virtual assets are subject to a 22% tax rate. However, the opposition People Power Party argues that taxing only virtual assets—while abolishing the financial investment income tax—is unfair, and is advancing a bill to abolish the virtual asset income tax. This bill has already been submitted to the National Assembly’s Committee on Strategy and Finance and will be discussed by its Tax Subcommittee. Analysts believe that, ahead of next year’s local elections, the ruling party may join discussions on delaying or scrapping the tax to win support from younger voters.
According to CoinDesk, Jesse Spiro, Head of Government Affairs at Tether, stated at the Consensus Miami 2026 summit that the 2026 U.S. midterm elections will be a critical test of whether Washington’s recent crypto-friendly policies can endure. He noted that although legislative progress has been made—such as with the GENIUS Act—the election outcome could still have a disruptive impact on the industry’s trajectory, emphasizing that “crypto should not be partisan.” Colin McLaren, Head of Government Relations at the Solana Policy Institute, said the industry’s political efforts have now shifted toward “durability,” ensuring Congress continues advancing priority issues like tax reform and developer protections in the future. Mason Lynaugh, Executive Director of Stand With Crypto, stated that the organization’s nearly 3 million members view the election as a “moment of accountability,” and that highly mobilized crypto voters could sway election outcomes in key districts.
According to CoinPost, the Japan Cryptocurrency Business Association (JCBA) officially released the “Best Practices for Crypto Asset Staking Services” guideline on May 7, covering operational requirements, emergency response, information disclosure, compliance management, external audits, and tax accounting—aiming to enhance the security and transparency of domestic staking services.
Odaily, Odaily Planet Daily - Coinbase CFO Alesia Haas said during this morning's earnings call: "I want to quickly remind everyone that our USDC contract (note: referring to the distribution agreement with Circle) automatically renews every three years and does so into perpetuity. This contract cannot be terminated."Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal also stated: "Fortunately, the terms of the contracts we have signed with Circle are already established, and as Alesia Haas emphasized, these contracts automatically renew. We expect to continue our partnership with Circle under the same terms in the future."
, Coinbase Vice President of US Policy Kara Calvert stated at the Consensus 2026 conference that the CLARITY crypto market structure bill could be reviewed by the US Senate Banking Committee as early as next week. Kara Calvert noted that the bill requires at least 60 votes to pass in the Senate, and parties are currently working to secure bipartisan support.A HarrisX survey shows that 70% of voters believe the US should enact clear cryptocurrency legislation. Additionally, Kara Calvert believes that the lack of a cohesive tax policy is a major barrier to institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies, as current tax rules require crypto exchanges to record transactions as small as $1. She expressed hope that tax reform legislation could make progress in 2026 and predicted that the House of Representatives might take action on related legislation within the next month or two.
Solv Protocol has announced the migration of over $700 million in tokenized Bitcoin assets to Chainlink's cross-chain protocol CCIP, and will gradually phase out LayerZero's bridging support across multiple chains. The migration involves core assets such as SolvBTC and xSolvBTC. Solv stated that the decision is based on the latest security reviews and recent cross-chain security incidents, and CCIP will become its standard cross-chain infrastructure. This move follows Kelp DAO's migration of approximately $290 million in assets to Chainlink, further strengthening the trend of "cross-chain infrastructure shifting toward security-first migration." (CoinDesk)
Linda Jeng, Chief Legal and Policy Officer at Aave Labs, stated during Consensus Miami 2026 that Aave's previous risk framework overly focused on financial risks and price volatility. Looking ahead, the protocol will incorporate assessments of cross-chain interoperability, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and underlying asset architecture.This reform directly stems from the rsETH incident that occurred in April. At that time, an attacker exploited a vulnerability in the KelpDAO cross-chain bridge to mint approximately 116,500 unbacked rsETH (valued at around $293 million), deposited it as collateral into Aave, and borrowed real WETH, leading to significant bad debt risks for the protocol.Jeng revealed that Aave will also release a formal "listing standards handbook" for asset issuers in the future, and will begin evaluating the correlation between DeFi protocols from a systemic risk perspective, rather than analyzing individual pools in isolation.Additionally, a "DeFi United" bailout plan involving Lido Finance, EtherFi, Ethena, and others has been launched to cover collateral shortfalls and prevent further proliferation of bad debt. (CoinDesk)