MiCA · 710

Bank of Italy research: Stablecoin remittances have no systemic cost advantage, and on-chain links account for only a small part

Comparatively, in a research report released in July 2026, the Bank of Italy first passed the “mystery customer” empirical survey to track 200 USDC transfers across ten corridors between Italy and Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and Japan. The results showed that the total cost of stablecoin remittance fluctuated greatly, with a minimum of only 0.3% and a maximum close to 9%. The average transfer on the blockchain chain accounts for only 0.4%. Most of the costs are concentrated in fiat currency withdrawal and recharge — traditional intermediary fees such as exchange transaction price differences, credit card fees, and withdrawal fees are decisive factors. Compared with traditional channels such as Wise, stablecoins have a cost advantage in some channels such as Brazil → Italy, but channels such as the UAE → Italy are more expensive and show a high degree of “channel specificity.” In terms of speed, blockchain transfers themselves only take a few minutes, but end-to-end efficiency depends entirely on the quality of traditional payment infrastructure in the destination country. Countries with instant payment systems such as Brazil (PIX), Italy (TIPS), and Argentina (Transferencias 3.0) can control the entire process within 20 minutes; countries that rely on traditional bank transfers, such as South Africa, extend the delivery time to 1 to 2 business days. The report points out that the efficiency of stablecoin remittance is determined by itself and the surrounding traditional payment infrastructure, and the two are complementary rather than alternative relationships. The report also analyzed the impact of global regulatory fragmentation: the European Union's MiCA and the US GENIUS Act represent a mature compliance framework; Japan's strict “safety priority” entry reduces nominal costs, but the process is complicated, causing users to flow out to offshore platforms; countries such as India and Turkey are in a transitional regulatory phase; prohibited countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia have failed to curb demand and instead push transactions into gray channels. This article is sponsored by GENG, Build Your Fortune on GENG (https://geng.one)

1d agoburnking

Hungary abolishes cryptoasset conversion verification requirements, cancels maximum 8-year prison penalty in line with EU MiCA

According to news, the Hungarian Parliament passed “Act XXXVIII of 2026” to abolish legal provisions relating to crypto asset conversion services, including verification requirements that European exchanges must pass before they can legally operate in Hungary. The bill was passed by vote on July 31 and implemented on August 7. This abolition simultaneously abolished two crimes related to crypto assets: unauthorised trading of high-value crypto assets is punishable by up to 5 years in prison, and providing crypto asset exchange services in violation of verification obligations is punishable by up to 8 years in prison. The relevant regulations are alleged to duplicate the EU MiCA framework.

1d ago

Blockchain.com Approved to Join Nigeria's SEC Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Program

According to Chainwire, global crypto platform Blockchain.com has been approved to join the Nigeria Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Program (ARIP). The company thus satisfies SEC's initial participation requirements, can operate within an established sandbox, and is subject to ongoing compliance, testing parameters, and regulatory conditions. Through ARIP, Blockchain.com will work directly with the SEC to evaluate digital asset business models, test safeguards, and help improve long-term regulatory frameworks. ARIP is aimed at virtual asset service providers and fintech innovators to assess emerging models, operational risks, and investor protection and anti-money laundering standards. Owen Odia, general manager of Blockchain.com Africa, said Nigeria is one of Africa's most important digital asset markets, and participation in ARIP is an important step in the company's long-term commitment to the country, helping to introduce global experience in a controlled environment and supporting a framework that both protects consumers and encourages responsible innovation. Over the past year, the company has obtained UK FCA registration, EU MiCA framework authorization, and Cayman CIMA's VASP license. Established in 2011, Blockchain.com serves over 70 jurisdictions, has more than 94 million wallets and 44 million confirmed accounts, and has processed over $1.1 trillion in crypto transactions. This article is sponsored by GENG, Build Your Fortune on GENG (https://geng.one)

4d agoburnking

Circle: The euro stablecoin EURC has surpassed 400 million euros in circulation and has become an important component of Europe's on-chain payment infrastructure

Comparing news, Circle officially announced that its euro stablecoin EURC circulation has surpassed 400 million euros and has become an important growth point for the Eurozone on-chain financial ecosystem. Circle said that EURC supply has increased by more than 100% over the past year, and EURC is moving from the experimental phase to the actual application phase as demand for compliant stablecoins increases in trading platforms, payment networks, and institutional businesses. EURC first launched on Ethereum in June 2022, then expanded to multiple blockchains such as Avalanche, Stellar, Solana, and Base. By the end of 2024, EURC had covered 5 chains, with a circulation volume of around 80 million euros, and continued to grow since then. Currently, EURC has been launched on many mainstream trading platforms such as Bitpanda, Bitstamp, Bybit, Coinbase, and Kraken, supporting EURC/EUR and EURC/USD trading pairs to further enhance the liquidity on the Euro chain. Circle said EURC's application scenarios are expanding from transactions to the fields of payments, settlement and institutional money management. Currently, fiat deposit and withdrawal service providers such as Mercuryo, MoonPay, Ramp, and Transak have enabled users to directly use the Euro to access digital assets, and institutional hosting and settlement platforms such as Cobo, Copper, and Fireblocks have also integrated EURC. Additionally, Visa and Mastercard have both previously expanded support for EURC settlement capabilities, making them usable for cross-border payments, card payment settlements, and enterprise-level fund transfer scenarios. With the full implementation of the European Union's Crypto Asset Market Regulation Act (MiCA), EURC operates according to the electronic currency token (EMT) standard, issued by Circle France's electronic money agency, and is regulated by the French Prudential Regulation and Disposal Authority (ACPR). EURC reserve assets are completely segregated from Circle's funds and confirmed by regular audits by an independent third party. As of January 2026, the total global supply of stablecoins is around $300 billion. Although dollar stablecoins still dominate, euro stablecoins have become the second largest category. The euro stablecoin market has grown from around €400 million in June 2025 to around €650 million in June 2026, with EURC maintaining its leading position. Circle said that despite EURC's growth, the euro stablecoin is still in its early stages compared to the Eurozone's M2 money supply of more than 16 trillion euros, and there is still plenty of room for future development in real-time settlement, cross-border payments, and corporate financial infrastructure.

4d ago#On-chain dynamics

EU expands crypto sanctions against Russia, adds 14 new platform trading bans and allows full bans on relevant countries

Comparatively, the European Union passed the 21st round of sanctions against Russia on July 23, extending the trading ban to 14 crypto service platforms located in Georgia, Panama, the United Arab Emirates, the Marshall Islands, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus, and adding 4 new sanctions against the A7 Russian ruble network. The new regulations will come into effect on August 25, prohibiting Russian and Belarusian citizens from holding, controlling, or holding positions in MiCA crypto asset service providers within the European Union. The scope of application extends to services such as consulting, portfolio management, and transfer of crypto assets on behalf of clients. The new regulations also allow the EU to impose a comprehensive crypto trading ban on third countries that have not prevented related sanctions evasion. The list of relevant countries is currently empty and includes only third countries that have been determined by the EU Council to continue and have not systematically blocked the provision of crypto asset services or the operation of related platforms.

4d ago

Is the code no longer worth it? The $11.2 billion financing gave the same answer

Author: Shenchao TechFlow Original title: Revealing the $11.2 billion funding flow in half a year: The crypto industry's most valuable asset is changing from code to license Dubai crypto lawyer Irina Heaver and her team NeosLegal did a simple but powerful thing: sorting through all publicly disclosed crypto industry financings in the first half of 2026, totaling about $112 billion. The conclusion is only one sentence: every loan with a disclosed amount goes to a business that requires regulatory permission to operate. The top three tracks are: $3.7 billion in payments and stablecoins, $2 billion in forecasting markets, and $1.7 billion in exchanges and trading platforms. All three areas have one characteristic in common, requiring a license to operate lawfully in any major jurisdiction. Institutional capital's valuation logic for the crypto industry has changed from “what code can you do” to “do you have a license or not”. Who checks the cheque who pays the bill first. Kalshi closed a $1 billion financing round in May, with investors including Sequoia, Morgan Stanley, Ark Invest, and a16z. Polymarket received $600 million, and the lead investor was the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. It only predicted a single market track and completed 34 rounds of financing within half a year. Among the $3.7 billion in payments and stablecoin circuits, the names BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and the Persian Gulf Sovereign Fund appear repeatedly. Vineet Budki, Managing Partner at Sigma Capital, put it bluntly: Regulatory licenses have gone from compliance footnotes to core valuation metrics. There is cold arithmetic behind this judgment. An application cycle for a MiCA license or Dubai VARA license usually takes 18 to 24 months and costs millions of dollars. Codes can be forked over the weekend; licenses can't. When venture capital evaluates two projects with similar functions, the one with the license naturally has a moat that cannot be quickly replicated by competitors. The license plate is a new moat to look at this phenomenon on a longer timeline. In 2020-2021, the main themes of crypto financing were protocols and infrastructure. Public chains, DeFi protocols, and NFT platforms have taken most of VC money. The investment logic is technical barriers and network effects. Whoever has the highest TVL, who has the most active developer ecosystem, is worth the most. In 2022 - 2023, the bear market cleaned out a number of pure narrative projects, and financing began to lean towards businesses with real income. Exchanges, wallets, and infrastructure companies have increased their share of financing. Data for the first half of 2026 show that this trend has reached a logical end: capital is no longer paying for technological innovation itself, but for “the ability to operate technological innovation within a compliance framework.” To put it bluntly, a code is a necessary condition; a license is a sufficient condition. This is highly consistent with the evolutionary path of the traditional financial industry. Fintech companies relied on technology disrupted financing in the early 2010s, and by the late 2010s, they relied on licenses and compliance capabilities. Stripe is worth 100 billion dollars, and the core barrier is its ability to operate in compliance in more than 40 countries, far exceeding the technical gap of the payments API itself. The crypto industry is following the same path, only faster. Funding flows and user activity are being split, but there is an important gap in this set of data: it only counts financing, not users. On-chain data shows that DeFi protocols are growing in TVL, DEX trading volume, and number of active addresses in the first half of 2026. Uniswap, Aave, and Jupiter's unlicensed daily activity and trading volume didn't shrink because VC money stopped flowing to them. Retail users are still trading, borrowing, and providing liquidity on the chain. This means that what is happening is a more subtle split rather than the “death of unlicensed agreements”: institutional capital is flowing to compliant, licensed centralized businesses, and retail user activity is still distributed in an unlicensed on-chain market. Money and people are moving in two directions. This split is most evident in the prediction market. Kalshi and Polymarket both predict markets, but Kalshi is a CFTC-registered exchange, and Polymarket has no license in the US. Kalshi got $1 billion in financing and Morgan Stanley...

5d ago深潮TechFlow#Kalshi #Exchanges #stablecoins #financing #Predicting the market

Ireland Unveils First Anti-Money Laundering Strategy, Will Tighten Scrutiny on Private Crypto Wallet Transfers

Comparatively, the Irish government released its first national anti-money laundering (AML) strategy, which plans to strengthen scrutiny of digital asset transfers involving private crypto wallets (self-hosted wallets) and increase due diligence requirements when crypto companies cooperate with overseas institutions. According to an announcement from the Irish Ministry of Finance, the strategy implements the remaining requirements of the European Union's Transfer of Funds Regulation (Transfer of Funds Regulation) and will require crypto asset service providers (CASP) to carry out “enhanced checks” on transfers involving private wallets, while implementing stricter customer due diligence when doing business with overseas crypto companies. The relevant measures are based on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) “Travel Rules” (Travel Rules), which require sender and receiver information to be attached to digital asset transactions to improve transparency in the flow of funds. Ireland said the new regulations are progressing simultaneously with the European Union's Crypto Asset Market Regulation Act (MiCA). MiCA has established a unified regulatory framework for crypto asset service providers, while Ireland previously granted a transition period of 12 months, which is less than the maximum allowed by the European Union of 18 months. Currently, the transition period ended at the end of December 2025, so the new requirements will directly apply to officially authorized companies. (Decrypt) This article is sponsored by GENG, Build Your Fortune on GENG (https://geng.one)

8d agoburnking

HKD stablecoin “big retreat”: 36 applicants, only 2 left

Source: Foresight News Author: Joe Zhou Original title: The Hong Kong Dollar Stablecoin “Great Retreat” is strategically negative and tactically aggressive. The participants in the HKD stablecoin are waiting for a reason to get them excited. “We are not optimistic about the HKD stablecoin.” An industry insider close to the regulatory level said bluntly to the author, “Being optimistic about stablecoins does not mean being optimistic about Hong Kong dollar stablecoins — these are two completely different things.” He paused and added: “Let the least willing and least motivated institutions dominate the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin and marginalize the most motivated and thoughtful institutions. How can this be done?” This is not personal prejudice. I learned from many participants in the Hong Kong stablecoin business that the ownership of the first two Hong Kong dollar stablecoin licenses already reflects the embarrassment of “passive defense” supervision: Standard Chartered Bank-led Anchoring Fintech Co., Ltd. took the initiative, while the other licensed institution “didn't want to do it at all” — this is already an open secret in the community. At the same time, companies with strong intentions to explore the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin scenario, such as Ant Group, JD Technology, and Yuancoin Technology, have failed to actually enter the market or have no core dominance. “Engaged, but not optimistic.” Two people from different institutions, both close to the Hong Kong stablecoin business, spoke almost in unison. Currently, the situation of Hong Kong dollar stablecoins is showing three subtle patterns: one type of institution is optimistic about the stablecoin circuit but has reservations about the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, but they have to “take their place”; another type of institution is not enthusiastic about stablecoins and is being forced to enter the market by regulation; there is also a category of institutions that have the will, resources, and scenarios, but are turned away because of their status. This misalignment is the most realistic footnote to the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin's “Great Retreat”. One license, two attitudes, three positive reactions for Standard Chartered, negative for HSBC — one license, two attitudes. In September 2025, 36 institutions flocked to apply for a HKD stablecoin license, which was very exciting. Nearly a year has passed, and today in August 2026, few people have taken the initiative to mention the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin. The hustle and bustle has receded, and there are only two real players left: Standard Chartered and HSBC. A brand-new business model was eventually completely handed over to organizations that are mainly engaged in traditional business models. Market sentiment is as cold as ice. “Everyone in the community knows that HSBC is not active.” Two people from different Hong Kong licensed crypto exchanges invariably told the author. On 10 April 2026, the HKMA issued the first batch of two HKD stablecoin licenses to Anchorage Financial Technology Co., Ltd. (Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), Hong Kong Telecom and Animoca Brands) and Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited. However, according to industry sources, the two institutions have very different attitudes towards stablecoins. Standard Chartered has shown some initiative and has begun to lay out a global stablecoin strategy. On July 2, 2026, Standard Chartered and USDC issuer Circle jointly announced the launch of an institutional-grade USDC one-stop access service. On August 12, 2026, Anchorage Financial launched the first phase of the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin HKDAP. Currently, it is only open to institutional distributors and professional investors such as HashKey and OSL, and plans to expand to retail users as early as the end of 2026 depending on market conditions. HSBC is a different story. “HSBC is passive; they only do it when they are pointed at their nose.” An industry insider spoke bluntly to the author. Compared with Standard Chartered's aggressive promotion, HSBC's Hong Kong dollar stablecoin program is clearly behind schedule until the second half of 2026. Behind this delay is HSBC's careful consideration of the stablecoin business based on real interests. “HSBC is more inclined to implement tokenized deposits rather than stablecoins.” A person close to HSBC revealed. The root cause is that stablecoins directly conflict with HSBC's main business. According to the data, about 85% of HSBC's payment business revenue comes from net interest income based on deposits, and the payments business itself accounted for about 22% of its total revenue in 2025. HSBC's core business model is to absorb low-cost deposits and earn interest spreads through loans and investments — and stablecoin issuance just diverts bank deposits and shakes its foundation. What's more, the business of issuing compliant stablecoins itself is far from being “profiteering”: revenue is highly dependent on the interest rate environment, yet profits are being encroached upon by various channels such as issuance, hosting, and distribution. For HSBC, which has deposit and loan spreads as the core and holds a large number of customer deposits, active all in stablecoins not only erodes its deposit base, but also does not earn significant profits, and lacks internal commercial driving force. In addition to Standard Chartered and HSBC, the reaction of 13 licensed crypto exchanges to the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin was also mixed...

8d ago22#Hong Kong dollar stablecoin

Circle Executive: Most EU stablecoin issuers can't host their own tokens for clients

Comparing news, Patrick Hansen, Circle's senior director of EU strategy and policy, tweeted that out of about 23 authorized electronic currency token (EMT) issuers in the EU, only 9 have been approved to provide crypto asset services (CASP) at the same time. This means that only these 9 companies can provide escrow and transfer services for the stablecoins they issue, while the remaining 14 can only mint or destroy tokens directly to customer wallets and cannot hold or send stablecoins on behalf of customers. This greatly limits the range of services an issuer can provide. Hansen said Circle has obtained the necessary CASP approvals through the MiCA Section 60 notification process to provide USDC and EURC related escrow or payment services to institutional clients. He was surprised that more EMT issuers had yet to take this step. Nine companies that currently provide some crypto asset services include Circle, Société Générale - Forge, CACEIS Bank, Banking Circle, Bridge, Fiat Republic, Newrails, Blue EMI, and Stable Mint.

9d ago

Andre Cronje: DeFi no longer exists, only on-chain finance is left

Comparing news, Andre Cronje, founder of the DeFi platform Flying Tulip and founder of Fantom Network, said that most DeFi protocols are no longer truly decentralized, and only a few niche sectors can still be called DeFi. In his opinion, DeFi has evolved into “on-chain finance” or “open finance.” He pointed out that true DeFi should have characteristics such as decentralization, immutability, and no intermediaries. Currently, intermediaries for most agreements have become companies and assume traditional financial institution functions such as decision makers and risk committees. Cronje said that doesn't mean real DeFi doesn't exist anymore, and some protocols are still innovating. According to DeFilLama data, the total hedging value of DeFi has dropped by more than half in the past 10 months from $167 billion in early October 2025 to $75 billion when the original article was published. The European Central Bank (ECB) analyzed Aave, MakerDAO, Ampleforth, and Uniswap in a working paper published in March and found that based on November 2022 and May 2023 position snapshots, the 100 addresses with the highest governance token holdings in the above agreement all control more than 80% of the token supply. The ECB therefore questioned the extent of decentralization of the DAO in question and whether it should continue to be considered a “fully decentralized” service not subject to the Crypto Asset Market Regulation Act (MiCA). This article is sponsored by GENG, Build Your Fortune on GENG (https://geng.one)

9d agoburnking