News linked to this event type.
Odaily News: Following the full implementation of the EU's MiCA regulation on July 1, over 1,700 unlicensed crypto platforms have been ordered to cease operations and guide users toward licensed platforms; currently, only 323 companies hold valid authorizations. Approximately 10 million users need to migrate their assets, and scammers are taking advantage of this by impersonating regulators and licensed exchanges, sending fake migration notices to lure users into transferring assets to fraudulent platforms. The French Financial Markets Authority (AMF) stated that scammers have been posing as its employees to defraud funds under the guise of collecting "management fees." The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) confirmed that its identity and logos have been misused. The Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) warned that migration from unlicensed exchanges has itself become an attack surface, advising users to verify service providers through ESMA's official register and to remain vigilant against unsolicited contact requesting fund transfers.
Odaily News: As Wall Street and global financial institutions accelerate their entry into the digital asset space, the boundaries between traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) are gradually blurring. Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley stated that the era of "going long Bitcoin and short bankers" is over, and financial institutions are pivoting to the other side of the crypto industry, driving digital asset adoption.Hunter Horsley noted that this summer, two financial institutions, each managing over $1 trillion in assets, approved the launch of crypto products in a bear market environment, showing that large institutions are expanding client access to digital assets. "Everyone put on the crypto jersey this year. Now, everyone is working for the crypto industry," Horsley said. He pointed out that these institutions, managing over a trillion dollars in client assets, would not have opened such services during the 2022 crypto market downturn, but are now actively embracing this sector.Fabian Dori, Chief Investment Officer at Sygnum, also believes the relationship between banks and the crypto industry has undergone a structural shift. "The trade of 'going long Bitcoin and short bankers' is over. Banks have moved from resisting digital assets to building, supporting, and distributing them through custody, tokenization, and compliant trading," a change driven primarily by growing client demand and gradually clarifying regulatory rules, rather than short-term market cycles.Nathan McCauley, CEO of Anchorage Digital, said that over the past two years, its client base has increasingly reflected the convergence of traditional and crypto finance. Large financial institutions typically choose to partner with specialized crypto infrastructure companies rather than building their own technology systems.In recent years, a growing number of financial institutions have entered the crypto space, including Swissquote, DBS Bank, BBVA, BNY Mellon, Credit Suisse-affiliated entities, as well as Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab. (CoinDesk)
Odaily News, Tornado Cash founder Roman Storm stated that if the logic behind the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) case against him holds, tech companies Google and OpenAI should also be held liable for North Korean hackers abusing their products. Those involved reportedly used ChatGPT to write code and Google Gemini for forgery and image manipulation. Storm was convicted in August 2025 of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. He pointed out that the Tornado Cash case could set a legal precedent where software developers are penalized for criminal acts committed by users, emphasizing that criminals should be held accountable rather than the developers of tools. The CLARITY Act for digital asset markets is intended to provide protections for software developers by distinguishing developer liability from the potential misuse of protocols for illegal activities. However, although a final motion for consideration of the bill has been scheduled for a vote, its current chances of passage remain low. (Bitcoin News)
Odaily News: A survey conducted by the European Central Bank (ECB) across 8,205 companies in the eurozone shows that only 0.2% of surveyed businesses accept cryptocurrencies or stablecoins for online payments, while the acceptance rate at physical points of sale stands at 1%. Among businesses with physical points of sale, 92% accept cash payments and 88% accept card payments. Mobile payment acceptance rose from 36% in 2024 to 68% in 2026. (Bitcoin.com News)
Hong Kong police announced the city recorded a total of 20,613 fraud cases in the first half of this year, involving total losses of approximately HK$3.5 billion. Among these, investment fraud cases totaled 2,151, accounting for about one-tenth of all fraud cases, yet causing losses as high as HK$1.66 billion. One investment fraud case involving cryptocurrency resulted in losses of approximately HK$84 million. The victim was lured into investing by transferring cryptocurrency to an electronic wallet provided by the scammers, and only discovered the fraud when they were unable to withdraw their assets.Hong Kong police also provided an update on the JPEX virtual asset fraud case, which remains under investigation. To date, there have been approximately 2,800 victims, with losses totaling around HK$1.6 billion. Since 2023, law enforcement has arrested 81 individuals, of whom 29 have been charged with conspiracy to defraud, money laundering, and perverting the course of justice, among other offenses. (Ming Pao)
Odaily Odaily News: In an operation codenamed "Lightning Strike," Hong Kong police arrested 14 men and 3 women aged between 20 and 54, including 13 Malaysians and 4 locals. They also raided 3 locations and seized HK$3.67 million in cash, believed to be criminal proceeds. The scam syndicate recruited Malaysians from overseas, arranging their flights and accommodation to come to Hong Kong as runners. They would pose as relatives of elderly victims, falsely claiming they had been arrested by police and demanding bail money, then arranging runners to collect the cash. Police investigations revealed that the syndicate collected a total of HK$4.67 million in fraudulent proceeds between June 4 and August 14. The case involves 22 victims, with reported losses totaling HK$2.47 million. On August 14, police arrested 5 individuals, including 2 local men, 2 local women, and 1 Malaysian man, all of whom are currently detained for investigation. Police also recovered HK$200,000 in fraudulent funds. Police stated that some foreign currency or virtual currency exchange shops were exploited by the syndicate to process or transfer fraudulent funds, and reminded these shops to verify customer backgrounds, transaction purposes, and fund sources, while also watching for abnormal cash and virtual currency transactions. Conspiracy to defraud carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. (HK01 NFT)
: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is reviewing a rule change proposal submitted by Cboe BZX Exchange, involving six leveraged commodity ETFs that track 3 times the benchmark's single-day performance. The SEC's initial review period is 45 days after publication in the Federal Register. Volatility Shares LLC is the sponsor of the relevant funds, with products including 3x Gold, Silver, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Crude Oil, and Natural Gas ETFs, all of which are intended to operate as commodity pools and are not registered as investment companies. Among these, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs will primarily invest in near-month and next-month futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) rather than directly holding Bitcoin or Ethereum, and will allocate cash and cash equivalents as collateral or margin. Before the relevant products can be listed, the SEC must approve the exchange's rule change, and the trust's Form S-1 registration statement must also become effective. Each fund must have at least 100,000 shares at the time of listing, and authorized participants may submit cash creation or redemption orders in increments of 10,000 shares. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Cryptocurrency exchange Binance will stop processing transactions involving 16 crypto asset service providers, with restrictions taking effect in three batches on August 7, August 13, and August 23. Users will not be allowed to send or receive assets directly or indirectly with the relevant entities after the corresponding dates. The affected platforms include Shelbit, Aban Tether Exchange, A7 Nigeria, A7 Africa, HTX, EXMO, Rapira, Bitpapa, and Exnode, among others. Transactions initiated after the effective dates may be temporarily withheld and subject to compliance review, and affected wallets may face temporary restrictions. The United States has imposed sanctions on Shelbit and Aban Tether, which are linked to an Iranian crypto network; the UK has also imposed sanctions on Russia-related trading platforms and the A7 network. A7 claims it transferred over $90 billion in funds last year. (Bitcoin.com News)
Galaxy Research has sharply lowered the probability of the U.S. CLARITY Act passing this year from the previous 75% to 10%, believing that disagreements over ethical provisions, bank lobbying, and the limited legislative time window in September have all increased the difficulty of passing the bill.
: Digital asset firm Galaxy Digital has lowered the probability of the CLARITY Act passing this year from 75% in May to 10%. The bill proposes that two U.S. federal regulatory agencies each oversee crypto asset regulation separately. U.S. Senators will return to Washington on September 14, followed by a working period of approximately three weeks. According to the Senate schedule, the motion to invoke cloture to advance the bill will be eligible for a vote at 2:15 PM on September 15. The motion requires the support of at least 60 senators. Republicans currently control 53 seats; if all Republican senators support the bill, support from at least 7 senators from other parties would still be needed. Galaxy Digital stated that unresolved ethics concerns, declining Republican support due to banking lobbying, and the shorter legislative window in September constitute the main obstacles to the bill's passage this year. (Bitcoin.com News)
Dubai cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has launched pre-market perpetual contracts linked to Chinese robotics company Unitree and AI startup Moonshot AI. The contracts are denominated and settled in USDT and do not involve ownership of shares in the respective companies. Bybit stated that its traditional finance perpetual contract product lineup has grown to over 200 since its launch in April, covering stocks, ETFs, commodities, indices, and pre-market companies. Unitree received approval from Chinese securities regulators in July to list on the Shanghai STAR Market. RWA.xyz data shows that the distribution value of tokenized stocks has reached $2.38 billion, with 1.31 million holders, a 123.62% increase in the latter over the past 30 days. (Cointelegraph)
Odaily News: Russia's Ministry of Energy, pursuant to Government Decree No. 936, has banned cryptocurrency mining and participation in mining pools in Moscow and parts of the Kursk Oblast, with the ban lasting until December 31, 2032. The year-round restriction aims to alleviate electricity capacity shortages, as energy-intensive mining facilities continue to strain regional power grids. Russia legalized registered mining in 2024, and has since imposed related bans in 10 other regions due to rising electricity demand. (CoinDesk)
Crypto startups completed USD 11.2 billion in funding in the first half of 2026, with all disclosed capital flowing to regulated, licensed enterprises. Payments and stablecoins, prediction markets, exchanges, and trading platforms received the most funding. Major backers include Wall Street and large global financial institutions, whose investment focus is on licensed and compliant companies. Investors and founders increasingly view regulatory licenses as scarce and defensive assets, while retail investors still primarily trade on unlicensed or alternative platforms. (CoinDesk)
Odaily News: Bank Leumi, Israel's largest and oldest commercial bank, has announced a partnership with cryptocurrency company Galaxy Digital, planning to launch Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana trading services on the Leumi Trade investment app and mobile banking platform PEPPER in early 2027, subject to approval from the Bank of Israel. Customers will be able to buy, hold, and sell related crypto assets through their bank accounts, without needing to open accounts on separate exchanges or use personal wallets. Galaxy Digital will provide institutional trading platforms and custody infrastructure, while Bank Leumi intends to operate under a white-label model where customers do not hold private keys. Bank Leumi previously announced a partnership with Paxos in 2022 to offer crypto trading services, but it did not receive regulatory approval. Fees, trading limits, the asset list, and external wallet withdrawal rules for this service have not yet been disclosed, and custodied crypto assets do not enjoy the same deposit insurance coverage as shekel deposits. (Bitcoin.com News)
According to the UK's Financial Times, China plans to lift exit restrictions on the founders of AI agent company Manus. Previously, Manus CEO Xiao Hong and Chief Scientist Ji Yichao were required to travel to Beijing for investigation and were restricted from leaving the country in March this year, as the company's acquisition by Meta for $2 billion was suspected of violating investment regulations. According to two informed sources, Xiao Hong recently told employees that he plans to return to Singapore, where the company's headquarters is located, in the near future. Manus announced this week that it will soon resume independent operations, stating that this move is "part of the separation from Meta to comply with regulatory requirements in specific regions." The divestiture transaction still requires final approval from China's National Development and Reform Commission (the NDRC had halted Meta's acquisition in April).
According to The Decoder, a self-represented plaintiff Matthew Elliott in Connecticut embedded invisible AI instructions in court documents, attempting to influence potential AI automatic review systems. These instructions were presented in white font size 3 on a white background, barely perceptible to the human eye, but fully readable by AI. The content aimed to guide the AI output to align with his claims and overturn the clerk's previous dismissal decision. The court discovered clues due to abnormal blank areas in the document, thereby exposing the manipulation. Judge Walter Spader Jr. compared this act to "secretly communicating with jurors," and pointed out that Connecticut courts actually do not use AI to review documents, so it did not affect the outcome, but the intent to manipulate itself constituted an issue. As a sanction, the court revoked Elliott's electronic filing privileges, requiring all his documents to be submitted in person in paper form.
According to Yonhap News Agency, South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb announced its financial report for the second quarter of 2026. Revenue for the first half of 2026 was 168.8 billion won (approximately 109 million USD), plummeting 48.7% year-on-year; operating profit was 14.9 billion won (approximately 9.6 million USD), dropping significantly 83.4% year-on-year; net loss reached 108.7 billion won (approximately 70.1 million USD). Specifically, second-quarter revenue was 86.3 billion won (approximately 55.7 million USD), down 35.8% year-on-year; operating profit was 12.1 billion won (approximately 7.8 million USD), a year-on-year decrease of 44.0%. Bithumb stated that the performance decline was mainly due to the continued high interest rate policy in the United States, causing Korean and global investors to shift their funds and attention to stock markets such as AI and semiconductors, leading to a subsequent decline in the activity of the virtual asset trading market.
According to crypto.news, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was re-elected as an MP with 63.34% of the vote in the Clacton by-election, and the UK Parliamentary Standards Commissioner subsequently reopened an investigation into his undeclared financial interests. The investigation covers two items: first, personal payments of approximately $6.7 million (approximately £5 million) received from Christopher Harborne, a billionaire investor and shareholder of stablecoin issuer Tether; second, benefits provided by long-term advisor George Cottrell, including drivers, security, social media staff, and a five-story luxury mansion in London. Farage previously denied wrongdoing on the grounds that the "gifts occurred before taking office as an MP," and resigned in July this year, causing the investigation to be suspended. After this re-election, he must redeclare financial interests within one month, and disclose registrable interests received within the 12 months prior to the election. Meanwhile, UK Labour Party MPs are pushing to upgrade the temporary ban on crypto political donations into permanent legislation.
The X platform announced further enhancements to algorithm transparency, officially open-sourcing the code relevant to the exposure ranking of posts in the "For You" recommended timeline, and launching new transparency tools that enable users to check whether their accounts or posts have been assigned labels that may limit visibility. X stated that this move aims to enable users to determine for themselves whether the platform restricts their content distribution, whether the recommendation system is fair, and why they see specific content. The two features released this time were described by X as "complementary pieces of a puzzle": the open-source code demonstrates the generation mechanism of the "For You" timeline, including content tags affecting post exposure and their functions; the transparency tool allows users to check whether their own accounts or posts have restriction labels affecting visibility. It is reported that this feature is still in the pilot phase and is available only to randomly selected eligible accounts. Initial test subjects include users who have been registered for over a year and have posted more than 10 times in the past month. X plans to gradually expand coverage based on user feedback. Third-party recommendation system experts have been invited to review and test this code release in advance to ensure information disclosure is clearer and more practical. The company stated that going forward, as the recommendation algorithm continues to evolve, it will regularly update the relevant transparency mechanisms.
Grayscale Research Director Zach Pandl stated in a post on platform X that Ethereum is like a "small country," while ETH has only one core "government function": protecting property rights and value exchange within the system. Unlike traditional countries that provide public services through taxation, Ethereum mainly relies on "seigniorage," i.e., issuing new ETH, to fund network security. Under this framework, stakers responsible for maintaining network security are equivalent to the group providing public services, receiving rewards through newly issued ETH. Therefore, Ethereum's staking mechanism and ETH issuance policy essentially constitute the network's fiscal policy and monetary policy simultaneously; more security guarantees usually mean stronger property rights protection, but at the cost of higher ETH issuance volume and potential other risks. Some community members believe that Ethereum's monetary and fiscal policy design should consider the security trade-offs brought by these key ratios, but the current mechanism has not yet fully incorporated these factors. Zach Pandl added that the above analogy may not be entirely accurate as it does not yet involve other important factors such as the ETH burn mechanism, MEV, governance, etc.; how the future ETH issuance policy will be adjusted remains to be seen based on community governance results.