News linked to this event type.
Payward, the parent company of Kraken, has won its arbitration against former auditor Mazars USA, with the arbitrator ruling that Mazars must pay Payward $22 million. Payward is now seeking confirmation of the arbitration award and a final judgment from the Delaware Court of Chancery.The dispute originated during the peak of the so-called "Operation Choke Point 2.0" in 2022. Payward claimed that Mazars abruptly withdrew from a nearly completed audit of Kraken without finding any issues with the company. However, the move caused reputational damage to Kraken and forced the company to spend years and incur significant legal fees to clarify its position.Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Payward, stated that audits are not a "favor" for crypto companies but rather critical infrastructure necessary for maintaining banking relationships, licenses, counterparty trust, and regulatory confidence. When an auditor withdraws without negative findings, it unfairly leaves a cloud of suspicion over the company."Operation Choke Point 2.0" is the crypto industry's term for regulatory pressure during the Biden administration, referring to the period after the FTX collapse when US regulators informally pressured banks to limit services to crypto companies. Sethi noted that the US FDIC sent at least 25 letters to 24 banks, requesting them to pause or avoid expanding crypto-related business. This ruling is also seen as a legal countermeasure by the crypto industry against such regulatory pressure.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins released a statement on the 2026 regulatory agenda, indicating continued efforts to advance a series of regulatory reforms, including adapting the regulatory framework to the current market environment, actively embracing innovation and new technologies, implementing President Donald Trump's goal of "making America the global crypto capital," facilitating the launch of more crypto-related products in the U.S. market, establishing clear rules for crypto asset fundraising, and clarifying market participants' responsibilities in on-chain custody and facilitating on-chain tokenized securities trading.In terms of capital market reform, the SEC will advance the "Make IPOs Great Again" initiative by reforming the disclosure system and reducing compliance costs for companies going public, thereby encouraging more companies to enter the public markets while maintaining necessary investor protections.
Patrick Hansen, Senior Director of EU Strategy and Policy at Circle, cited the MiCA provisional registration data from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), releasing the compliance statistics one week after the regulation's full implementation. Currently, the EU has 21 authorized Electronic Money Token (EMT) issuers, distributed across 12 member states, collectively issuing 35 EMTs pegged to 8 types of fiat currencies. Among them, France leads other member states with 6 licensed issuers. Meanwhile, the number of approved Asset-Referenced Token (ART) issuers remains at 0, while the total registered Crypto Asset Service Providers (CASP) under the MiCA framework has exceeded 270.
Odaily News British politician Nigel Farage has announced his resignation as MP for the Clacton constituency and will stand in the subsequent by-election to reclaim his seat, stating the move is intended to challenge the political establishment. Farage is currently under investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, with the core controversy centering on a large political donation that was not properly declared. Ahead of the 2024 general election, he received £5 million from Christopher Harborne, a crypto investor based in Thailand who also holds a partial stake in the stablecoin Tether. Public scrutiny continues over whether this crypto-related donation violated parliamentary declaration obligations. Under investigative pressure, Farage chose to resign and seek re-election, an event that has also fueled ongoing market discussions about the regulatory implications of crypto capital entering Western political systems. (Bloomberg)
In response to public accusations by Du Jun, Co-founder of Huobi and ChainUP and Founder of Vernal Capital, Metagent Co-founder and former CTO Li Bojie (@bojie_li) issued a response. Li Bojie stated that ABCDE Capital committed to investing $1.5 million in the investment agreement, but actually only $500,000 was received, with the remaining $1 million never arriving, yet the company's cap table continued to record their equity based on the $1.5 million share. Affected by this, he and the co-founders voluntarily reduced their salaries, and the company's recruitment and R&D also fell into difficulties. In October 2024, Li Bojie officially resigned with board approval, citing personal family reasons preventing him from leaving mainland China and compliance risks existing in Web3 projects. He stated that during his tenure, he always fulfilled the responsibility of disclosing the cap table and business status on schedule, and after resignation, he also complied with non-compete clauses, voluntarily avoiding startup projects in fields such as Web3, AI infra, and image generation. Previously, Du Jun publicly posted stating that Li Bojie is the "founder with the least contractual spirit" he has ever cooperated with, accusing him of refusing to fulfill basic obligations agreed in the investment agreement, including refusing to synchronize business progress and financial status with investors, and subsequently losing contact.
stablecoin issuer Tether has announced a $20 million strategic investment in the Latin American on-chain financial services platform Mercado Bitcoin to support its growth in asset tokenization, payments, credit, capital markets, and compliant digital financial services.Founded in 2013, Mercado Bitcoin has evolved from a digital asset trading platform into a comprehensive on-chain financial infrastructure platform, covering services such as trading, tokenized investment products, lending, stablecoin payments, banking infrastructure, and cross-border financial services. This funding will primarily be used to expand payment infrastructure, scale tokenized products for institutional and retail investors, develop credit businesses, advance on-chain capital market construction, seek strategic partnership opportunities, and drive international expansion.
EDX Markets, an institutional digital asset trading platform, announced the completion of a $76 million Series C funding round, led by Japan's major financial group SBI Holdings. The company stated that the proceeds from this round will be used to upgrade its trading, clearing, and settlement infrastructure, accelerate product iteration, and promote the scaled rollout of global institutional services.Previously, EDX had launched EDX FlowConnect, empowering enterprises to compliantly launch digital asset trading services. Additionally, the platform has submitted an application to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish EDX Trust, aiming to build a federally regulated digital asset custody, clearing, settlement, and risk management system. (Prnewswire)
Odaily, on-chain security firm Specter has released preliminary findings on the BONK DAO governance attack. After tracing on-chain fund flows, significant suspicions have emerged: the Realms founder, an address associated with Crypto Notte, shows signs of capital flow interaction with the suspected attacker's wallet.According to the review, the attacker published a malicious governance proposal on June 30. The proposal required 1% of the total BONK circulating supply in voting power to pass. Between July 4 and 5, the attacker acquired sufficient voting weight by purchasing tokens through exchanges and borrowing from Marginfi, totaling approximately $4 million, thereby pushing forward and executing the governance attack.
According to the official announcement by Bitcoin Suisse AG, its Middle East subsidiary BTCS (Middle East) Ltd. has obtained the Financial Services Permission (FSP) issued by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), authorizing it to provide regulated digital asset financial services to qualified clients, covering services such as institutional-grade custody, spot trading, and derivatives hedging. With this, Bitcoin Suisse now holds compliant licenses in four jurisdictions: Switzerland, Bermuda, the European Economic Area (MiCAR), and Abu Dhabi, further advancing its global crypto wealth management strategic layout. Ceyda Majcen will serve as the Chief Executive Officer for the Middle East region.
According to The Block, South Korea's Upbit parent company Dunamu and Naver Financial announced that their stock swap transaction has been delayed again, with the latest deadline extended to December 31, 2026. This is the second delay for the transaction; previously, in March this year, it was postponed from June 30 to September 30. The two companies stated that the "Digital Asset Basic Act" currently being drafted in South Korea may affect the transaction's progress or even the final outcome. The bill contains controversial clauses proposing to cap the shareholding ratio of major shareholders in domestic crypto exchanges at 20%, which would directly impact Upbit's existing equity structure if implemented. Previously, the transaction plan involved Naver Financial issuing approximately 87.56 million new shares, with a total value of about 15.13 trillion Korean won (approximately 9.9 billion USD), to promote synergistic development between both parties in the fields of digital assets and the integration of AI and blockchain.
Odaily Odaily News: Coinbase has announced that it has obtained a UK investment services license (MiFID), and will offer traditional financial product trading services to UK users in the future. Institutional and professional traders can trade perpetual contracts for crypto, stocks, and commodities, while retail users will be able to trade stocks on the Coinbase platform for the first time.Coinbase stated that this license, together with its existing UK e-money license and crypto asset registration, forms its regulatory framework. It represents the company's most significant expansion of product capabilities since entering the UK market and will further advance its "Everything Exchange" strategy. The platform will also gradually support services such as stablecoin payments, savings, lending, and tokenized real-world assets (RWA) in the future.
BIT released a daily report stating that Bitcoin performed steadily in early July, continuing its historically relatively strong seasonal performance. US President Trump's statements, such as "the US is taking over cryptocurrency," boosted market sentiment, and investors' attention also turned to the CLARITY Act, which needs to make progress before the Senate enters summer recess on August 7.
According to TechFlow Research, minutes from Goldman Sachs' July 5 Circle management meeting indicate that stablecoin growth has decoupled from crypto market cycles, with use cases rapidly expanding towards cross-border payments, consumer e-commerce, capital market settlement, and AI agent payments. USDC accounts for approximately 99% of trading volume in the x402 agent payment protocol. Circle pointed out that the "digital dollarization" trend in emerging markets is accelerating, with USDC becoming a tool to replace local currencies and unreliable banking systems. If passed, Circle believes the CLARITY Act will be a catalyst rather than a headwind; the bill allows issuers to continue revenue sharing to incentivize distribution and encourages usage-based reward mechanisms rather than passive holding.
According to the introduction, the platform is built on open-source technology and W3C-standard compliant Verifiable Credentials, enabling citizens to securely prove and manage their own identities while upholding high standards of privacy, security, and data sovereignty. Regarding the division of responsibilities, SIGN Foundation will lead the platform's system design, solution architecture, and technical implementation; Bhutan NDI will contribute its experience in national digital identity architecture and provide a foundational open-source identity framework, drawing on the successful implementation experience of the Bhutan National Digital Identity project; MoCTI will provide strategic leadership, policy direction, and cross-government agency coordination to support nationwide implementation.
According to PRNewswire, Bitcoin mining company Canaan Inc. announced that its American Depositary Shares (ADS) have officially transferred from the Nasdaq Global Market to the Nasdaq Capital Market. The stock ticker CAN remains unchanged, and the transfer will not affect its normal trading.
据官方消息，BonkDAO 表示，其 DAO 金库 因一项恶意治理提案遭攻击，约价值 2000 万美元的 BONK 代币被盗。调查显示，相关地址曾在提案发起前通过交易所钱包购买 BONK。BonkDAO 正与交易所、跨链桥及 Solana 基金会合作处理此事，执法部门已获通知，后续将继续推进资金追回及责任追查。
Polymarket traders estimate a 23% probability that the U.S. government, through legislation, executive orders, export controls, or other formal actions taken before December 31, 2026, will prevent the American public from accessing major Chinese AI models. Multiple departments within the U.S. Department of Commerce have already banned employees from using Deepseek on work devices due to data security concerns, and Virginia, Texas, and New York have also imposed Deepseek device bans on state employees. (Bitcoin.com News).
Odaily A federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut has revived common law fraud claims in the Genesis Yield lawsuit against Digital Currency Group founder Barry Silbert, DCG, and other defendants, while allowing federal securities law claims in the case to proceed.The ruling amends a prior decision by the court from February of this year. The plaintiffs had argued that the court has jurisdiction to hear their state law claims under the Class Action Fairness Act. Judge Stefan Underhill accepted this argument and reopened the relevant state law claims.The case revolves around the defunct Genesis Yield lending program, which allowed users to deposit crypto assets and earn interest. Investors allege that Silbert, DCG, and other defendants misled customers about the company's financial health and risk controls before Genesis suspended withdrawals and filed for bankruptcy in early 2023.However, not all state law claims were revived. The court dismissed consumer protection claims from four states and stayed related claims from three others. Overall, the ruling re-centers the dispute regarding fraud liability for DCG and Silbert as a focal point of the case. (The Block)
tokenized sovereign debt startup M1X Global has completed a $5.5 million seed funding round, led by Paradigm, with participation from Breed VC and others.It is understood that M1X Global previously collaborated with the Republic of the Marshall Islands to assist in the issuance of the on-chain sovereign debt instrument USDM1. This product is a dollar-denominated tokenized sovereign debt instrument, 1:1 backed by U.S. Treasury bonds, and natively issued on a public blockchain by a sovereign nation. USDM1 was initially issued on Stellar and is now also available on Canton and Solana.Jordan Goldman, President and COO of M1X, stated that sovereign debt is one of the largest asset classes globally, but prior to USDM1, it did not exist in a native on-chain form. The company aims to establish USDM1 as on-chain sovereign collateral and expand its use within regulated financial markets.The initial application scenario for USDM1 is domestic government aid distribution. Citizens of the Marshall Islands can receive funds via the Lomalo wallet, with payments settling in seconds, bypassing the need for traditional correspondent banking networks. M1X also indicated that its recent integration with Bank of Guam, a U.S. FDIC-insured bank, further connects USDM1 to regulated banking infrastructure. (The Block)
Odaily报道 According to data from Visa's on-chain data platform, USDC has expanded its lead over USDT in stablecoin transaction volume during the first half of 2026. Data shows that the adjusted stablecoin transaction volume in June rose to $1.79 trillion, an increase of 63% month-over-month and 125% year-over-year from June 2025, setting a new all-time high. Visa's statistics have excluded non-genuine economic activities such as bot transactions and internal exchange transfers.The total stablecoin transaction volume for the first half of the year reached $8.82 trillion, surpassing the full-year 2024 level of $5.8 trillion, but still below the record $10.8 trillion set in 2025.Structurally, USDC accounted for approximately 70% of the volume in the first half of 2026, while USDT accounted for about 25%, indicating a significant shift in market share towards compliant stablecoins.Analysis points out that as banks and institutions increasingly use stablecoins for settlement and fund management—with institutions like Standard Chartered and BNY Mellon accelerating integration into the USDC ecosystem—stablecoin infrastructure is entering a phase of institutional expansion. (CoinDesk)