October 1, 2026 @ 12:20 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Valley National Bancorp has reached a definitive agreement to purchase Bluevine Inc., a digital banking platform built for small businesses, in a transaction valued at about $340 million. The announcement, made on September 28, 2026, positions the deal as a way for Valley to strengthen… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 11:25 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Dogecoin has long been known as a simple, widely recognized payments network. That reputation is starting to change. DogeOS, an application layer built by the team behind the MyDoge wallet, has opened a public testnet intended to let developers deploy Ethereum-style smart contracts while leaving… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 10:12 am By JD Alois  |  

This week the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced a new “Crypto Gateway“ for firms to register to provide crypto services in the country. A grace period applies: firms must apply by February 28, 2027, to provide services, with the new regime coming into force… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 9:27 am By JD Alois  |  

The Payments Association in the UK advocates for the payments and transfer sectors, including crypto participants. Today, the Payments Association says it has acquired its European counterpart, the Payments Association – EU (TPA-EU). Any monetary considerations were not revealed. Together, the two entities will now… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 8:58 am By JD Alois  |  

Stablecoin rewards, or yield, are a contentious topic in the US and Europe. In the US, the battle is ongoing, but so far the legacy banking sector has the edge, as direct yield has been banned. The GENIUS Act, the US stablecoin law, bars permitted… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 8:30 am By Michael Wong  |  

Asia Pacific businesses are demanding faster cross-border payments as a wider range of payment providers and methods reshapes the international payments market, according to new research from Nium and financial research firm Celent. The study found that 73% of businesses in the region want international… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 8:28 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Circle (NYSE: CRCL) and Volante have announced a partnership designed to help banks fold stablecoin payments into the systems they already run, rather than forcing them to stand up a parallel digital asset platform. On September 28, 2026, Volante Technologies, a payments-as-a-service provider whose platform… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 7:43 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Small and mid-sized firms that sell or buy across borders are preparing to change how they move money. A Mastercard (NYSE: MA) study produced with Bain & Company finds that 91 percent of internationally active SMEs expect to leave their current cross-border payment provider within… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 7:41 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Uphold has rolled out Vault Inheritance, which is described as a legacy-planning option for customers who keep Bitcoin, XRP, and Hedera in the platform’s assisted self-custody wallet. The company framed the product as a response to a problem unique to crypto: legal title can pass… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 7:11 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Base, the Ethereum Layer 2 incubated by Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN), has activated Cobalt, its third mainnet upgrade of 2026. The hard fork went live on September 30 after a Sepolia rollout the week before. The release focuses on two user-facing changes: Validity Transactions, which let traders… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 6:21 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Elio Mortgage has stepped out of stealth after securing $5.1 million in pre-seed capital, positioning itself as an AI-first brokerage rather than another vendor selling point tools to lenders. Motive Partners and Social Leverage led the round, with Insight Partners co-founder Jeff Horing joining as… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 3:26 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Investors who lost money in a long-running fake cryptocurrency scheme have taken a meaningful step toward partial reimbursement after a London court issued confiscation orders against the two men already serving prison sentences for the crime. Southwark Crown Court directed Raymondip Bedi to pay £603,404.28… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 12:44 am By Omar Faridi  |  

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) is studying whether a formal market-maker regime should be written into the country’s next digital asset law after a yen-linked token listed on Upbit briefly traded at several times the value it is meant to hold. The catalyst was… Read More

September 30, 2026 @ 5:44 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Citigroup (NYSE: C) has extended its institutional blockchain liquidity platform, Citi Token Services, into Japan and the United Arab Emirates, bringing the network to seven live markets. The addition allows corporate and financial institution clients with accounts in those two jurisdictions to move funds around… Read More

September 30, 2026 @ 5:29 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused four overseas-linked entities of running two overlapping “investment confidence” schemes that used WhatsApp, social media, and fake regulatory credentials to take more than $15 million from retail investors. On September 29, 2026, the agency filed two… Read More

September 30, 2026 @ 1:54 pm By JD Alois  |  

Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) has announced the incorporation of artificial intelligence into its brokerage platform. According to a statement Schwab distributed, the investment platform has launched “Charley,” an AI assistant to support customers. Beginning in October, the service will roll out to eligible users in the… Read More

September 30, 2026 @ 1:37 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Michael Saylor, executive chairman of the Bitcoin-focused treasury company Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), has argued that digital tokens should play a larger role in how businesses raise money as artificial intelligence changes how firms are created and organized. In an essay, Saylor said AI will let… Read More

September 30, 2026 @ 1:35 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts have opened a civil forfeiture case aimed at recovering digital assets they say are connected to a 2023 account takeover that drained 33.7 bitcoin from a single Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) login. According to court papers, a beneficiary of a Massachusetts family trust… Read More

September 30, 2026 @ 11:01 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Australian lawmakers have formally invited the leaders of two major artificial intelligence companies to appear before a Senate inquiry, following revelations that an autonomous OpenAI system gained unauthorised access to government websites. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who chairs the inquiry examining artificial intelligence and data… Read More