News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: Coinbase-backed crypto advocacy group Stand With Crypto (SWC) has announced its first batch of Senate candidate endorsements, including Ohio Republican Senator Jon Husted, as well as Iowa candidate Ashley Hinson and New Hampshire candidate Chris Pappas.Previously, the U.S. Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act in a procedural vote on September 15. SWC Executive Director Mason Lynaugh stated that following this vote, the organization will shift more of its focus toward elections. SWC also announced expanded support and advertising spending for certain House candidates. The organization had previously said it would factor senators' performance on key CLARITY Act votes into candidate records. (The Block)
According to The Block, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is preparing to regulate digital assets and tokenized custodial platforms under a framework scheduled to take effect in April 2027. The regulator stated that it will issue consultation papers, guidance documents, and draft rules during this period, while monitoring market integrity and risk management.
Odaily News: The UK Financial Conduct Authority has obtained a court order requiring two individuals involved in a fraudulent crypto investment scheme to jointly repay £851,400, with plans to return the funds to victims. At least 65 investors suffered combined losses of £1.54 million, and the recovered amount accounts for approximately half of the total losses.
According to The Block, New York-based stablecoin payment and tokenized asset company HIFI has announced the completion of a $37 million Series A financing round led by Left Lane Capital. Proceeds from the funding will be used to expand its tokenized capital market infrastructure and product lines. HIFI provides API infrastructure that integrates fund flows, compliance, and settlement capabilities, currently processing over $7 billion annually across 87 countries. Prior to this round, HIFI participated in a tokenized securities production trade co-hosted by DTCC, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and Nasdaq in July. Later this month, it partnered with Visa to extend its stablecoin settlement platform to remittance and card payment scenarios, initially supporting stablecoin settlements for more than 4 billion Visa cards globally.
According to The Block, all Democratic members of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee wrote to Committee Chairman Tim Scott, calling for a bipartisan public hearing on prediction markets rather than discussing them in closed-door sessions. That day, Republican members met privately with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour to discuss securities-linked products, investor protection, and related regulatory issues.
Odaily News: Visa has released its "Money Travels 2026" report, based on a survey of 2,192 U.S. adults, showing that if stablecoins were equipped with bank-grade fraud protection and deposit insurance, consumer willingness to use them would rise from 36% to 56%; if offered through existing financial institutions, willingness would also increase to 45%. The survey also found that 56% of respondents had never heard of stablecoins, and 64% of respondents had greater trust in payment providers than in the technology itself. Currently, the total global supply of USD-pegged stablecoins has exceeded $295 billion, with USDT at approximately $183.4 billion and USDC at approximately $76 billion; Visa's annualized stablecoin settlement volume has surpassed $20 billion, representing more than a 15-fold increase from a year ago. (The Block)
According to The Block, Visa released its Money Travels 2026 report. Based on a survey of 2,192 U.S. adults, consumer willingness to use stablecoins would rise from 36% to 56% if they feature bank-level fraud protection and deposit insurance; if offered through existing financial institutions, willingness could also reach 45%. The survey also indicates that 56% of respondents had never heard of stablecoins, while 64% trust payment providers more than the technology itself. Currently, the global total supply of USD-pegged stablecoins exceeds $295 billion, comprising approximately $183.4 billion in USDT and around $76 billion in USDC. Visa's annualized stablecoin settlement volume has already surpassed $20 billion, representing an increase of over 15 times compared to a year ago.
According to reports from The Block New York Summit, Kevin O'Leary stated that major blockchain protocols are vying fiercely to become the preferred platform for traditional financial institutions and stock exchanges. He also raised the question of whether a single dominant chain will ultimately emerge, or whether various vertical sectors like real estate will each adopt their own dedicated blockchains. O'Leary emphasized that core issues such as security cannot be overlooked. He expressed optimism regarding the CLARITY Act, believing that regulatory clarity will effectively facilitate the return of institutional capital.
According to The Block, Kevin O'Leary, chairman of O'Leary Ventures, stated at the New York Avalanche Summit that he has resumed buying cryptocurrency to position for the next cycle. He noted that the core issue in current crypto investment lies in determining which blockchain will achieve widespread adoption in which industry. He emphasized that the first major stock exchange to adopt blockchain would mark a "watershed moment" for the industry, as the entire financial ecosystem would then be forced to align with that chain's compliance requirements. O'Leary also mentioned that Bitcoin is expected to account for 1%~3% of alternative asset allocations, comparable to institutional gold holdings. On the regulatory front, he anticipates the Clarity Act will face difficulty passing before the midterm elections, but progress on digital asset tax policies will drive further regulatory implementation.
According to The Block, Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan has revised his previous assessment regarding the impact of the Clarity Act's failure. The bill secured only 49 votes in a procedural Senate vote, falling short of the 60-vote threshold needed to advance. While Hougan had previously forecasted that a failed bill would trigger several weeks of crypto market weakness, he noted in his latest client report that Bitcoin has continued to rise after bottoming out around $57,950 on July 1, surpassing $80,000 on September 4. In the same period, Polymarket’s implied probability for the bill’s passage within the year dropped from 39% to 14%. Price action moving contrary to these expectations suggests that the bull market does not rely on legislative passage. Hougan also pointed out that initiatives such as Robinhood launching its own blockchain, Morgan Stanley listing a Solana ETF, and DTCC completing the settlement of the first batch of tokenized stocks demonstrate that Wall Street institutions are already positioning themselves ahead of regulatory clarity. He noted that proactive rulemaking by the SEC and CFTC can partially fill legislative gaps, but acknowledged that executive regulations carry the risk of being overturned by future administrations. Consequently, congressional legislation remains the sole path to providing lasting regulatory certainty.
According to The Block, sports betting company Underdog has filed a lawsuit in federal court against Connecticut state officials seeking to prevent the state from classifying its sports event contracts as illegal gambling. Underdog argues that it operates as a federally regulated Designated Contract Market (DCM), and that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) holds "exclusive jurisdiction" over DCMs, meaning Connecticut's enforcement action conflicts with the framework of the Commodity Exchange Act. Previously, Connecticut's Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) issued cease and desist orders to nine prediction market platforms, including Underdog, Polymarket, Coinbase, Crypto.com, and Robinhood. Earlier this month, Underdog also filed separate lawsuits in five states: Ohio, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Mexico, and Washington. Currently, more than twelve states have taken enforcement actions or filed lawsuits against prediction market platforms.
According to The Block, Katie Wobadden, spokesperson for Senator Cynthia Lummis, stated that the Democrats' amended counterproposal for the latest version of the Clarity Act is identical to their pre-recess position, leading Republicans to reject it. Wobadden noted that Republicans have already made significant concessions on multiple fronts, including agreeing to nearly the entire Tillis-Gallego ethics framework, while Democrats "have not budged," and called on them to engage in substantive negotiations.
According to The Block, Bernstein analysts indicated that Senate Republicans' progress on the Clarity Act may surpass market consensus expectations. The Republican proposal has been finalized, incorporating 126 substantive amendments put forward by Democrats. President Trump has also endorsed most measures within the bipartisan ethics framework, including granting enforcement authority to state attorneys general. Bernstein pointed out that the crypto market currently holds a pessimistic view toward Tuesday’s procedural vote, with "any upside surprises not yet priced in." The probability of the bill's passage on prediction market platform Kalshi has climbed back above 30%. Analysts cautioned that a failure to pass the legislation, combined with hawkish remarks from the Federal Reserve, could trigger a "significant pullback" in markets. However, even if the bill fails, it will accelerate SEC and CFTC crypto regulatory rulemaking rather than derail broader regulatory efforts.
According to The Block, Jack Dorsey-founded payment company Block has submitted an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish an uninsured national trust bank named Builders Bank & Trust, N.A. If approved, the bank would provide custody and other trust services, covering Bitcoin and stablecoins. Block stated that this federal charter will establish a federal regulatory framework for some of its custody and related businesses.
According to The Block, the Ethereum Foundation Protocol Cluster has released a list of EIP ratings for the upcoming Hegotá upgrade, setting December 2029 as the target milestone for achieving full quantum resistance. The two S-tier (mandatory delivery) proposals for the upgrade are: FOCIL (EIP-7805) at the consensus layer, which enhances censorship resistance by requiring validator committees to enforce the inclusion of public mempool transactions; and framework transactions (EIP-8141) at the execution layer, which natively integrates account abstraction, supporting custom signatures, sponsored gas, and batch operations to improve security and quantum resistance. The Ethereum Foundation stated that this timeline aligns with the independent migration targets of Google, Cloudflare, and Microsoft, and the December 2029 deadline will be considered non-negotiable prior to January 2027. Hegotá is not the final quantum-safe fork, but rather a critical milestone determining whether subsequent upgrades can proceed on schedule. From the Q4 2026 Glamsterdam upgrade to December 2029, the average fork cycle is only about 7.2 months, leaving extremely limited execution slack.
According to The Block, multiple crypto companies are actively lobbying the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to expedite the ETF review process and allow the submission of confidential draft filings. Among them, Grayscale has explicitly requested that SEC staff commit to responding within 45 days. However, Jane Street and Charles Schwab have expressed reservations regarding this, voicing concerns about rushing the listing process and the confidential filing mechanism.
According to The Block, the Wyoming Stable Token Committee announced the adoption of Chainlink Proof of Reserve to provide near-real-time on-chain reserve validation for its official stablecoin, Frontier Stable Token (FRNT). The Network Firm will audit FRNT reserves in accordance with AICPA standards, while Chainlink will post verification data on-chain in real time to bridge information gaps between reporting cycles. Previously, Wyoming fully migrated FRNT from LayerZero to Chainlink CCIP last month as its sole cross-chain infrastructure. The committee is also advancing the Chainlink Proof of Reserve Secure Mint feature, which requires verifying that reserves do not fall below FRNT's total supply before minting new tokens to prevent infinite minting attacks. FRNT launched in January this year and is the United States' first government-issued stable token, backed by U.S. dollars and short-term U.S. Treasuries.
According to The Block, Ethena Labs has officially launched the beta version of its self-custody payment app, Ethena Pay, built on Avalanche, which is now available in 48 countries including Brazil, Japan, Singapore, and Kenya. Users can receive funds via IBAN or cryptocurrency, hold balances in USDe, and benefit from fee-free instant global transfers. The app features three membership tiers: Standard (free), Pro (requires locking $2,000 worth of ENA or inviting 10 users), and VIP (requires locking $10,000 worth of ENA or inviting 50 users), offering respective annual yields of 5%, 6%, and 6%, with balance caps of $5,000, $15,000, and $50,000. The Ethena Pay card provides a 4%–5% base cashback (settled in AVAX), while Pro and VIP users enjoy up to 10% exclusive cashback at brands such as Uber, Spotify, and Claude. The backend infrastructure is powered by Iron, a subsidiary of MoonPay. Markets including the United States and the European Union were not part of the initial launch and will be progressively rolled out once regulatory compliance is achieved.
According to The Block, prediction market platform Kalshi announced a permanent ban on former U.S. Representative George Santos, marking the first time the platform has imposed a permanent ban on an individual user. Kalshi's compliance department determined that Santos engaged in prohibited trading in markets related to the State of the Union Address (SOTU)—by publicly announcing whether he would attend two weeks prior to the event, he caused significant price volatility in the associated contracts, constituting suspected market manipulation. Santos was fined over $71,000. Previously, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had already filed charges against him regarding the same incident. Santos settled with the CFTC by paying $35,000, without admitting or denying the allegations.
According to The Block, Anatoly Popov, deputy chairman of Russia's largest bank Sberbank, stated that Russia's new cryptocurrency regulations will officially take effect on September 1, 2026, with the volume of regulated crypto transactions expected to reach 4 trillion rubles (approximately $46.4 billion) in the first year, and projected to grow to around 7.5 trillion rubles (approximately $87.1 billion) by 2029.