News linked to both this project and an event.
According to The Block, global asset management firm Franklin Templeton and Payward—the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken—have announced a partnership to jointly explore tokenization pathways for traditional investment products. The collaboration spans tokenized equities, compliant custody, actively managed yield products, and institutional crypto liquidity services. The two parties plan to launch tokenized Franklin Templeton financial products targeting institutional clients, with potential expansion to Kraken’s broader user base depending on circumstances. Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward, stated that this partnership will pioneer entirely new product categories that were not feasible just three years ago. Meanwhile, Payward has applied to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust company charter to further expand its access within the U.S. financial system.
Odaily Planet Daily reported that Starknet, the Ethereum Layer 2 network developed by StarkWare, has officially launched strkBTC. This is a new Bitcoin-based asset designed to achieve private balances and anonymous transfers through zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technology while maintaining composability with DeFi applications. After its launch, strkBTC supports "re-anonymization," allowing assets to be bridged back to entirely new, unlinked Bitcoin addresses, and also provides compliance audit and asset screening features. (The Block)
According to The Block, the Gross National Happiness (GNH) Mindful City (GMC) in Bhutan’s Special Administrative Region has officially launched its Accelerated Licensing Program for globally regulated digital asset enterprises. Companies holding licenses from major financial centers—such as Singapore, Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), and Hong Kong—can benefit from an integrated regulatory approval and bank account opening process, significantly shortening time-to-market and gaining direct access to corporate bank accounts via DK Bank. On taxation, GMC offers zero corporate tax (for priority sectors), zero capital gains tax, zero dividend tax, and zero inheritance tax. Foreign-investment tax exemptions remain in effect until 2030.
According to The Block, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking has released an updated 309-page version of the Clarity Act, scheduled for review and vote later this week. The new text includes language restricting stablecoin rewards and incorporates provisions from the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, clarifying that non-custodial developers are not considered money transmitters. Coinbase—which had previously withdrawn its support due to controversy over the stablecoin rewards provision—has now reversed its position and endorsed the bill; however, banking industry groups still deem the restrictions insufficient. Meanwhile, the bill still lacks ethics-related provisions targeting digital asset-related benefits received by the President and other federal officials. Democratic lawmakers have stated that, absent such compromises, the bill is unlikely to gain their support.
According to The Block, the Ethereum Foundation is restructuring its Protocol team, appointing Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn, and Fredrik as the new co-leads of the Protocol cluster. This reorganization comes as Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko plan to depart the organization, and Alex Stokes begins a sabbatical. The Protocol team is the Ethereum Foundation’s core team responsible for the design, research, development, and coordination of Ethereum’s base layer, covering areas such as security, cryptography, zkEVM, and peer-to-peer networking. The team is currently advancing Ethereum’s next major scalability upgrade, Glamsterdam, which aims to raise the gas limit ceiling and floor to 200 million and introduce ePBS. Subsequently, the team will shift its R&D focus toward the Hegotá upgrade and the FOCIL prototype to enhance Ethereum’s censorship resistance.
According to The Block, Lee Reiners—a lecturer in law at Duke University and former examiner at the New York Federal Reserve—published a post on May 8 stating that WLFI, the governance token issued by the DeFi project World Liberty Financial—which is closely associated with the Trump family—may constitute an unregistered security. Reiners cited the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) recently released token classification framework, arguing that WLFI is not a “pure digital commodity” and therefore falls under SEC regulatory scrutiny. He contends that WLFI was publicly presold—approximately 25 billion tokens—prior to the protocol’s launch and was marketed leveraging the Trump family’s brand, leading buyers to reasonably expect profits—a key element of the SEC’s “Howey Test” for determining whether an asset qualifies as a security. Regarding decentralization claims, Reiners referenced litigation filed by Justin Sun, noting that World Liberty unilaterally froze Sun’s tokens and revoked his governance rights—revealing a high degree of centralized control. Additionally, he highlighted clear conflicts of interest: the project borrowed $75 million in stablecoins from the Dolomite protocol, using 5 billion WLFI tokens as collateral; notably, a co-founder of Dolomite also serves as an advisor to World Liberty, and part of the borrowed stablecoins flowed directly to World Liberty itself.
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.
According to The Block, BNY announced the expansion of its crypto custody business into the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) in the UAE through partnerships with Finstreet and the ADI Foundation, offering institutional clients crypto-asset custody services. Initially, the service will support custody for BTC and ETH. The three parties will subsequently explore extending these services to the ADI Foundation’s underlying blockchain infrastructure and gradually expand to stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, and other regulated digital instruments.
According to The Block, South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with SSI Digital (SSID), the blockchain subsidiary of Vietnam’s largest securities firm, SSI. Under the MOU, the two parties will jointly establish and operate a digital asset exchange in Vietnam, covering areas including wallet and custody systems, security risk management, regulatory compliance, and product development. The agreement was signed in March this year and officially announced today. Bithumb stated that, subject to approval by local regulatory authorities, it may make a strategic investment in SSID’s cryptocurrency exchange project.
According to The Block, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand stated clearly on Wednesday at the Consensus Miami conference that she would not support the Cryptocurrency Market Structure Act unless it includes an ethics provision. She emphasized that members of Congress, the President, the Vice President, and senior executive branch officials must not profit from the industry by virtue of their insider status, bluntly declaring, “Without this provision, corruption will destroy this industry.” Previously, before the presidential inauguration, both Donald Trump and his wife launched meme coins. Their family-led DeFi and stablecoin project, World Liberty Financial, has also sparked widespread controversy. Bloomberg estimates that Trump has already earned at least $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency-related businesses.
According to The Block, Kraken has launched CFTC-regulated crypto spot margin trading for U.S. retail users. Users can use their held crypto assets as collateral to trade with up to 10x leverage—without needing to first sell assets to obtain liquidity. This product is the first offering launched by Kraken’s parent company, Payward, following its acquisition of crypto derivatives platform Bitnomial and leveraging Bitnomial’s regulatory license. Payward previously stated that it plans to roll out regulated perpetual contracts and options products for U.S. users in the future.
According to The Block, cryptocurrency exchange Bullish announced on Tuesday that it will acquire global transfer agent Equiniti from private equity firm Siris for $4.2 billion, aiming to integrate its tokenization infrastructure with a compliant shareholder services company that processes $500 billion in payments annually.
Coinbase Australia has launched a dedicated support service for Self-Managed Super Funds (SMSF), providing Australian trustees with a compliant and secure digital asset investment solution to help incorporate crypto assets like Bitcoin into retirement portfolios.According to Coinbase's official blog, the service leverages its recently obtained Australian Financial Services License (AFSL) and local team capabilities, offering entity verification processes tailored to Australian fund structures, downloadable audit reports compliant with local accounting standards, and institutional-grade security measures.Data from the Australian Taxation Office shows there are currently over 653,000 SMSFs in Australia, managing assets worth A$1.05 trillion and serving more than 1.2 million members. Coinbase stated that SMSFs are among the few retirement structures globally that allow individuals to directly manage digital assets, becoming a key gateway for investors to include cryptocurrencies in their long-term retirement strategies. (The Block)
According to The Block, Coinbase Australia announced on Monday that it will support cryptocurrency investments for self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs), providing trustees with a compliant channel for allocating crypto assets. The service offers downloadable data compliant with Australian Accounting Standards, as well as a streamlined entity verification process tailored to local fund structures.
According to The Block, on Monday, five major U.S. banking trade groups issued a statement regarding the latest compromise text of the U.S. Clarity Act, stating that the proposal “falls short of its intended goals.” This statement came just days after Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks finalized the compromise.
According to The Block, Payward, Kraken’s parent company, has announced the completion of its acquisition of Chicago-based crypto-native exchange Bitnomial, thereby obtaining a full suite of U.S. derivatives licenses from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), including Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), Designated Contract Market (DCM), and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) licenses. Payward stated that it will first launch spot margin trading on Kraken, followed by perpetual contracts and options products, all available to eligible U.S. customers. This acquisition will also provide partners—including banks, brokers, and payment service providers—with a channel to offer U.S. derivatives to their end customers. Bitnomial will operate independently under Payward while retaining its existing licenses and regulatory framework. The transaction’s value is reported to be up to $550 million, comprising cash and stock, implying a valuation for Payward of approximately $20 billion; however, the final terms have not been disclosed.
Payward (Kraken’s parent company) has announced the completion of its acquisition of Bitnomial, marking its official entry into the U.S. crypto derivatives market with full regulatory credentials. Following the transaction, Payward now holds a comprehensive set of U.S. CFTC licenses, including Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), Designated Contract Market (DCM), and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) status, enabling it to launch compliant derivatives services in the U.S. market.Payward stated that it will gradually roll out spot margin trading under the Kraken brand, followed by plans to launch perpetual contracts and options products, while expanding institutional-grade derivatives capabilities through the Bitnomial framework. It is reported that Bitnomial, as a Chicago-based native crypto derivatives trading platform, has long held the three core CFTC licenses and has been relatively aggressive in listing new assets. After the transaction, it will retain its existing licenses and regulatory framework, continuing operations within the Payward system.Additionally, this acquisition continues Payward’s recent expansion moves: the company had previously secured a $200 million investment from Deutsche Börse Group and filed IPO-related documents with the U.S. SEC, signaling its accelerated push into globally compliant derivatives and capital market pathways. (The Block)
BlackRock has submitted a comment letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), opposing the reserve asset restrictions proposed in its draft rules implementing the GENIUS Act. In the comment letter, the firm specifically targets the rules for "permitted payment stablecoin issuers," calling for no quantitative cap on tokenized reserve assets.BlackRock stated that the proposed restrictions are unrelated to regulatory objectives, and the risk of reserve assets should be determined by their credit quality, duration, and liquidity rather than whether they are held or transferred on a distributed ledger. This comment letter was submitted in response to multiple rule proposals from the OCC covering reserve composition, capital requirements, custody, and other related matters. (The Block)
U.S. lawmakers have reached an agreement on stablecoin yield provisions, a point of contention that had stalled the Clarity Act in the Senate for months. Senators Tom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks have finalized the text of the related compromise. Section 404 of the agreement stipulates that crypto companies cannot offer interest or returns that are economically or functionally equivalent to bank deposits, but allows for incentives related to the use of genuine platforms.Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated that the Senate Banking Committee should be urged to deliberate on the bill as soon as possible. This development could provide momentum for what has been a long-stalled review process. (The Block)
According to The Block, MoonPay has launched the stablecoin debit card “MoonAgents Card,” enabling AI agents and users to spend directly from on-chain wallets. The card is integrated with the Mastercard network and issued by Monavate, a regulated global payment platform.