Author: John Smith

Europe’s crypto market has moved beyond the race to secure a Markets in Crypto-Assets licence.  Summary MiCA’s transition ended July 1, leaving unlicensed firms to exit, sell, or transfer European clients. U.K. crypto firms face FCA authorisation, prudential controls, governance rules, and client-asset safeguards from 2027. Banks already hold compliance systems and networks, making partnerships or acquisitions cheaper than greenfield builds. The next test is whether authorised firms can afford the staff, capital and controls required to keep operating under the European Union’s full rulebook. The cost pressure may push smaller crypto companies towards mergers, sales or bank partnerships. The…

KB Kookmin Bank will launch a blockchain-based cross-border payment service for import and export companies in August 2026. Summary KB Kookmin will initially launch Kinexys-based U.S. dollar payments across ten countries during August 2026. The service links blockchain settlement with SWIFT while supporting corporate transfers beyond normal banking hours. KB becomes South Korea’s first financial institution using Kinexys for corporate import and export payments. The South Korean lender will use Kinexys by J.P. Morgan to support U.S. dollar payments across 10 countries. The service will connect Kinexys with existing SWIFT payment rails. It will support near-real-time transfers and foreign exchange…

Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson has warned that Bitcoin could lose its position as the largest cryptocurrency if its governance system cannot organise a response to quantum computing. Summary Hoskinson says Bitcoin could lose leadership if governance cannot coordinate a timely quantum-security upgrade successfully. Bitcoin developers are already discussing post-quantum migration plans, including BIP 361 and new signature designs. Cardano’s onchain governance lets ADA holders vote on upgrades, but coordination disputes have also emerged. He made the comments during an interview with The Starting Block published on July 24. Hoskinson described Bitcoin as “frozen in time” because major changes require wide agreement…

Institutional trading platform LMAX Group is working with Morgan Stanley and KBW, Stifel’s investment banking arm, to review a possible sale or public listing. Summary LMAX reviews a sale, SPAC merger, or listing that could value it at $5 billion. Morgan Stanley and KBW are advising LMAX, while Nasdaq ranks as its preferred listing venue. Ripple’s $150 million financing and Omnia exchange launch support LMAX’s push into institutional digital markets. People familiar with the private discussions told CoinDesk that a transaction could value the London-based company at up to $5 billion. The options include a full sale, a special purpose…

Robinhood is reportedly holding talks with Crypto.com about adding the exchange’s event contracts to its prediction markets hub. Summary Robinhood reportedly wants Crypto.com contracts to broaden its prediction market exchange network and product range. Any agreement could deepen Robinhood’s competition with Kalshi while reducing reliance on a single provider. Federal and state regulators remain divided over who controls sports-linked event contracts across the U.S. The proposed arrangement would let Robinhood users trade yes-or-no contracts supplied by Crypto.com, according to people familiar with the discussions cited by The Wall Street Journal. Neither company has announced an agreement, and the report said…

North Korea-linked hacking group BlueNoroff is using fake Zoom and Microsoft Teams meetings to profile cryptocurrency users before delivering malware.  Summary BlueNoroff scans browser wallets before deciding which fake meeting targets should receive its malware payload. Hijacked Telegram accounts help attackers contact trusted industry peers and extend the campaign through victims. The phishing kit supports Windows and macOS, stealing browser keys, system data, and Telegram sessions. Cybersecurity firm JUMPSEC said it recovered and analysed source code from an active phishing kit after its operators exposed JavaScript source maps on live infrastructure. The files showed separate Zoom and Teams lures, wallet-scanning…

While the market watched the token, the company spent $4 billion assembling what it was never granted: custody, prime brokerage, corporate treasury, and payment rails, acquisition by acquisition. This is the audit of what the money bought, what it earns, and the uncomfortable question the empire answers about XRP. Summary Between 2023 and 2025, Ripple spent roughly $4 billion on acquisitions: Metaco ($250 million, custody technology), Standard Custody (a New York trust license), Hidden Road ($1.25 billion, prime brokerage), Rail (stablecoin payments), GTreasury (about $1 billion, corporate treasury software), and Palisade (XRP custody). The pieces assemble into a recognizable shape:…

Stable exempts USDT transfers from gas. Plasma ships zero-fee sends. Sui made stablecoin transfers free at the protocol level. Every coverage of every launch asks the same question in passing, someone still pays for blockspace, and then moves on. This guide stops and answers it: five funding models, their failure modes, and how to tell which one your free lunch runs on. Summary A wave of chains and wallets now offer gasless stablecoin transfers: Stable’s protocol-level exemption for USDT sends, Plasma’s zero-fee transfers, Sui’s free stablecoin operations, fee delegation on BNB Chain, and wallet-level subsidies on Tron. Free is a…

StableChain’s product is Tether’s dollar: gas in USDT, transfers in USDT, yield in USDT. Its native token does none of that, and holders own governance and staking rights over a network whose every cash flow is denominated in someone else’s asset. This is crypto’s value-accrual question in its purest form yet, and it deserves a straight answer. Summary STABLE is the native token of StableChain, the Tether-ecosystem Layer 1 whose defining feature is that users never need it: gas is paid in USDT0, transfers settle in USDT, and simple sends are free. The token’s stated jobs are governance and security:…

The world’s largest stablecoin now travels between blockchains as USDT0, a version its builders insist is not a wrapped token, while its mechanics lock collateral in an Ethereum vault and mint claims elsewhere. Here is how it actually works, who runs it, what the trust stack contains, and why a gas tank on a new chain runs on it. Summary USDT0 is the omnichain version of Tether’s USDT, launched in January 2025, that lets the world’s largest stablecoin operate on blockchains where Tether has not deployed a native contract. It runs on LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token standard: real USDT is…