Blockchain & Digital Assets

October 2, 2026 @ 12:56 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Visa (NYSE: V) and Lloyds Banking Group have finished a week-long live experiment in using stablecoins for institutional settlement, showing that funds can move across borders far more quickly than on conventional rails—even when banks are closed. The trial, announced on 30 September 2026, is… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 11:52 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Fraudsters drained more than 766 ETH—valued by the community at roughly $2 million—by launching a counterfeit Ethereum Layer 2 that posed as GIWA before the real network ever went live. GIWA is an OP Stack project from Dunamu, the operator of South Korea’s Upbit exchange…. Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 7:21 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

HSBC (NYSE: HSBC) has taken a visible step toward introducing a regulated Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, announcing that the token will be called HSBC RedCoin. The name was disclosed on 30 September 2026 as the bank prepares a commercial rollout later in the year. Officials… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 6:30 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Miami-based Fintech Jeeves has closed a $110 million equity round to grow its stablecoin-native banking platform for companies that operate across borders. CoinFund led the financing, with AllianceBernstein, Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, CRV, GIC, Global PayTech Ventures, ParaFi, Vista, Wintermute, Y Combinator and additional backers… Read More

October 1, 2026 @ 5:01 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Citigroup (NYSE: C) has recently activated instant payments across several countries through Swift’s payments scheme, giving correspondent banks a simpler path into domestic real-time rails without building a local presence in each market. Announced on 29 September 2026, the capability is delivered through Citi’s WorldLink… 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 @ 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 @ 8:28 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 @ 7:41 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 @ 5:14 am By JD Alois  |  

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Division of Corporate Finance, quietly updated the crypto assets FAQs. The SEC first posted this staff guide on September 25, 2026. On September 28th, the SEC updated the guidance to clarify when a digital asset is tied to the… 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 @ 1:37 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 @ 10:19 am By JD Alois  |  

This week, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, part of the US Senate, published a report on Iran and its use of crypto and shadow banking to evade financial sanctions. The report focused much of its information on Iran’s use of Tether, the issuer of USDT,… Read More

September 30, 2026 @ 8:41 am By JD Alois  |  

The United Kingdom has launched regulated crypto activities. Previously, crypto firms operated under a mix of limited registrations and opaque rules as policymakers worked to update the regulatory regime. These firms now fall under the remit of the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which issued… Read More