Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has signed three memorandums of understanding with key entities and institutions in Kazakhstan.

 

In a blog post announcing the agreements, Binance said the MoUs focus on key sectors of Kazakhstan’s economy and were signed with the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, the National Bank of Kazakhstan, and the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC).

 

Under the memorandum signed with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, Binance will cooperate on digital assets, digital and computing infrastructure, and innovative payment solutions, while exploring the possibility of issuing a stablecoin backed by the Kazakhstani tenge.

 

The second memorandum, signed with the National Bank of Kazakhstan, focuses on building payment and digital financial infrastructure, with Binance and the National Bank potentially exploring opportunities to position Kazakhstan as a regional payments and fintech hub.

 

To ensure the initiative is practically implemented and moves beyond a paper plan, Binance and the National Bank of Kazakhstan have already created a roadmap outlining the different phases for building payment infrastructure, obtaining licenses, and launching new payment products.

 

The third memorandum, signed between Binance and the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), is aimed at strengthening cooperation under the Investment Tax Residency Programme and expanding the potential use of digital assets as part of Kazakhstan’s modern investment infrastructure.

 

According to Renat Bekturov, Governor of the Astana International Financial Centre, the expansion will enable investors to better access new opportunities within the AIFC ecosystem and contribute to the further development of Kazakhstan’s digital asset market.

 

The United States Scam Center Strike Force has entered into a partnership with the Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales and the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency to combat scam centers involved in cryptocurrency scams and other cyber enabled investment fraud (CIF) schemes targeting Americans and Britons.

 

The memorandum of understanding (MOU), which was signed Thursday at the residence of Sir Christian Turner KCMG, His Majesty’s Ambassador to the United States, was attended by other key officials, including Jeanine Ferris Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Stephen Parkinson, the Crown Prosecutor for England and Wales; and Graeme Biggar, Director General of the U.K.’s National Crime Agency.

 

With the signing of the memorandum, the two countries can now work together to conduct parallel investigations into common targets, share information on crime syndicates, discuss which jurisdictions should bring cases involving matters of common interest, and coordinate efforts to achieve mutually beneficial results.

 

“Together we will disable the Chinese TOC networks that are operating these scam compounds and depriving our citizens of their hard-earned funds, all while using human trafficked labor to increase their profit. Standing together, we are invincible,” said Jeanine Ferris Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

 

So far, agencies from both countries involved in the partnership have identified significant areas of overlap and will bring private industry partners on board at an event scheduled to be organized by the National Crime Agency in London in early October.

 

About the U.S. Scam Center Strike Force

 

Launched in November 2025 by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro, the U.S. Scam Center Strike Force is a multiagency law enforcement initiative created to combat scam centers, particularly syndicates operating in Southeast Asia.

 

Focusing heavily on cryptocurrency related and other cyber enabled fraud, the initiative has reported significant successes since its launch, including the seizure of more than $800 million worth of cryptocurrency and 503 .com domains tied to Chinese crime rings.

 

Global cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has launched derivatives contracts for eligible Canadian investors seeking to trade and speculate on a trusted platform.

 

 

The derivatives contracts, which will be offered through Coinbase Financial Markets, are the first of their kind from a crypto native platform in Canada, giving investors access to highly liquid and regulated contracts, including 23 perpetual and dated futures covering assets such as Bitcoin, ETH, and SOL; five commodity futures covering gold, silver, and oil; and index futures.

 

Regarding the features of the newly launched derivatives contracts, Coinbase said in a blog post that the contracts are regulated by its financial markets arm, an entity registered with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The contracts will also be flexible, with nano sized contracts designed for investors with lower upfront capital requirements.

 

Coinbase’s derivatives contract launch comes at a time when the exchange has rolled out more customizable charting and interface features on Coinbase Advanced.

 

Rather than forcing every trader to use the same chart setup, the rollout is aimed at making it easier for traders to customize their trading screens. Traders can switch between candlestick and line charts, change time frames, adjust chart settings and technical indicators, and use drawing tools.

 

The benefits of these features are that traders can spot market trends faster, identify potential entry and exit points, and analyze market movements more effectively.

 

Brazil’s central bank has announced plans to implement a system that monitors threats to crypto assets and issues real time alerts when potential risks are detected.

 

The monitoring system, which is being developed through a partnership between Brazil’s central bank and blockchain security firm Hypernative, has reportedly been tested with market participants and will be implemented by industry associations within the next two weeks.

 

When launched, either the central bank or Hypernative will be able to receive these alerts and distribute the messages to their members in real time.

 

Speaking to Valor Econômico, Brazil’s largest financial publication, Regina Pedroso, executive director of the Brazilian Tokenization Association, said the initiative began to be discussed at the end of last year, when the central bank began forming a working group among blockchain associations tasked with monitoring and warning of cyberattacks.

 

According to Pedroso, the monitoring system was tested among member blockchain associations, including Mercado Bitcoin and Foxbit, two of Brazil’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. Pedroso also noted that the central bank had already issued a bulletin outlining how the system will be implemented among association members.

 

The launch of the monitoring system by Brazil’s central bank underscores the country’s efforts to track threats involving crypto assets, particularly because cryptocurrencies can provide an exit rail for cybercriminals and fraudsters.

 

Although there has not been any major institutional cyberattack in Brazil this year, the country suffered several security incidents last year, most notably the hack of C&M Software, a technology company that connects smaller banks and fintechs to the central bank’s systems.

 

The hack reportedly led to the loss of approximately $140 million to $180 million, with $30 million to $40 million of the stolen funds reportedly converted into cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ether, and USDT, through OTC desks and exchanges in the region.

 

JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, has signaled its interest in the possibility of launching its own stablecoin, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

 

Although the bank has made no official announcement and has no active plans to launch a stablecoin at present, a JPMorgan spokesperson reportedly told the WSJ that the bank recently held a preliminary discussion about the possibility of creating its own stablecoin.

 

“While we have no plans to issue a stablecoin, depending on customer demand and the evolution of the regulatory landscape, we would of course evaluate all options in the future.”

 

If JPMorgan ever decides to move ahead with a stablecoin launch, the stablecoin will be very different from JPM Coin, a digital deposit token the bank launched on its permissioned Kinexys blockchain in 2019 to modernize institutional payments and settlements.

 

Growing Stablecoin Interest Among U.S. Banks

 

Like JPMorgan, several other U.S. banks and financial institutions have also been considering launching their own stablecoins.

 

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Santander have formed a global stablecoin venture comprising more than a dozen financial institutions.

 

Through this venture, the financial institutions plan to launch a dollar backed stablecoin, with possible expansion to stablecoins pegged to the euro and other G7 currencies over time.

 

Stablecoins have seen growing adoption among large financial institutions in recent times. 

 

According to a recent Fireblocks survey covering about 295 executives from banks and financial institutions, about 49% of these institutions actively use stablecoins for payments, while 23% are reportedly in the pilot phase and 18% plan to integrate stablecoins soon.

 

Monad, the high-performance EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain, has published a proposal aimed at giving users greater flexibility and changing how blockchain wallets manage authentication.

 

The proposal, titled “Flexible and Upgradeable Account Authentication,” was published by Kushal Babel and Jan Camenisch, two senior researchers at Category Labs, the engineering team behind Monad.

 

 

At its core, the proposal has one goal: to separate a wallet’s permanent address from the credentials that control it, thereby giving users the flexibility to add, replace, or retire keys without having to change the wallet’s address or move assets.

 

By publishing the proposal, Monad aims to address a key problem with current blockchain wallets. Since most wallet addresses are permanently derived from a single secp256k1 public key, losing the corresponding private key can make the wallet account unrecoverable.

 

As a solution to this problem, Monad is proposing an AuthConfig model, where every wallet account holds a mutable AuthConfig. This allows an account to hold multiple authenticators and a separate reconfiguration policy, enabling users to access their wallet accounts even if a private key is lost. At launch, the supported schemes will include secp256k1, P-256, Ed25519, WebAuthn/passkeys, ML-DSA (post-quantum), and a ZK-OAuth verifier.

 

Although there is currently no quantum computer capable of breaking the cryptographic schemes used by crypto wallets, several reports have projected that this could become possible in the future.

 

In addition to Monad, other companies, including Ledger and Coinbase, have also taken steps to develop quantum-resistant wallets. Coinbase has established an independent Quantum Advisory Council while also developing a post-quantum security roadmap.

 

Ledger has also added ML-KEM and ML-DSA, two NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptographic algorithms, to its Ledger SDK as part of its efforts to develop quantum-resistant wallet technology.

 

 

The Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) has announced its decision to block domestic access to prediction market Polymarket over concerns that its activities constitute illegal gambling.

 

The decision, announced Tuesday, was reached after the Telecommunications Deliberation Subcommittee, chaired by Kim Woo Seok, a standing commissioner of the Broadcasting, Media and Communications Review Board, unanimously voted to block access to the platform.

 

According to the committee, Polymarket’s activities abet or promote gambling under the National Sports Promotion Act. Although Polymarket claimed in response to the ban that it had removed its Korean language service and that payments in Korean won were unavailable, the committee rejected the claim, saying domestic laws cannot be evaded based on service methods or other technical characteristics.

 

"As Polymarket provides a winner take all profit and loss structure based on chance, focusing on domestic specific issues such as Seoul precipitation levels in August, thereby creating a practical illegal gambling environment for domestic users, access blocking measures are inevitable to protect domestic users," the committee added.

 

The committee also asserted that, before reaching its decision, it sought the opinions of other relevant agencies, including the Korean National Police Agency, the National Gambling Control Commission, and the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation. According to the committee, these agencies shared the view that Polymarket’s activities constituted the crime of gambling.

 

Korea’s ban on Polymarket comes shortly after the French Autorité nationale des jeux (ANJ) banned the prediction market’s activities, citing the promotion of illegal gambling activities.

 

With its recent ban, South Korea has now joined the list of more than 30 countries and jurisdictions that have blocked or restricted access to Polymarket.

 

 

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has warned of a fraud campaign in which scammers are impersonating the agency and sending fake IRS letters to cryptocurrency holders in an attempt to steal personal credentials and digital assets.

 

According to the IRS, the fake letters direct unsuspecting recipients to a fraudulent website that closely mimics the official IRS.gov website. Once there, victims are instructed to enrol in a "Digital Asset Compliance Portal" before an urgent deadline.

 

Image credit: x.com 

 

As part of the enrollment process, the website may ask users for personal information, including cryptocurrency wallet details, exchange account credentials, and other sensitive data that could be used to steal their digital assets.

 

"Criminals continue to exploit public trust in government agencies by creating convincing fake websites and official-looking correspondence," said IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Chief Jarod Koopman. "Before responding to unexpected requests for personal information, stop, verify the source, and report potential fraud schemes to law enforcement."

 

Regarding the identities of those behind the campaign, the IRS said in a press release that Coinbase and its cyber intelligence partner, Dark Tower, traced the campaign's infrastructure to a domain registered through a Hong Kong registrar, while the fraudulent website was hosted in Romania.

 

The IRS also outlined several measures to help cryptocurrency holders stay safe, including exercising caution when responding to unsolicited letters, emails, text messages, and phone calls from individuals whose identities cannot be verified.

 

The IRS remains one of the most frequently impersonated U.S. government agencies by scammers. According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, victims reported losses exceeding $114 million from IRS impersonation scams between 2013 and mid-2020.

 

 

Uphold, the multi asset digital trading platform, has launched a new equities service that allows its U.S. customers to access more than 4,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs directly through the Uphold platform.

 

Image credit: x.com

 

The launch, which builds on Uphold's vision of becoming a comprehensive all in one multi asset financial platform, gives users access to both traditional investments and digital assets within a single platform, allowing them to manage both asset classes in one place.

 

"People want one app for all of their investing, including crypto," said Nancy Beaton, President of Uphold U.S. "Equities on Uphold is designed to make that real. Uphold customers can now sell Bitcoin to buy Berkshire Hathaway shares in a single step on the app, without clunky currency conversions or the need to transfer funds between stablecoins and cash balances."

 

Compared with other platforms that may require users to convert between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies or move funds across multiple platforms, Uphold provides a frictionless experience that allows users to trade seamlessly between supported crypto assets, U.S. stocks, and ETFs within a single platform.

 

According to the Uphold team, users can access all of these services without paying any Uphold commissions. They can also purchase fractional shares for as little as $5.

 

Although Uphold's fractional U.S. stocks and ETFs are currently available only during standard U.S. market hours, typically from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, the company plans to expand trading availability to around the clock during the Monday through Friday trading week.

 

The launch of Uphold's U.S. equities service coincided with the launch of tokenized U.S. stocks and perpetual markets by Arcus, a decentralized exchange built by the dYdX team, on the Robinhood Chain.

 

The offering includes more than 95 leading U.S. stocks, including Nvidia, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon, which will be available for trading around the clock on the Robinhood Chain. Although the perpetual market remains in beta, it includes products from more than 35 markets spanning U.S. equities, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and indices.

 

 

Telegram CEO and co-founder Pavel Durov has announced plans to launch what he described as the largest ever rollout of a non-custodial crypto wallet this summer.

 

According to Durov, the non-custodial Gram Wallet will provide Telegram's more than 1 billion users with access to instant zero-fee crypto transactions. Because the wallet is non-custodial, users will retain full control of their private keys.

 

Built on The Open Network (TON) blockchain, Gram Wallet, formerly known as TON Wallet, was developed primarily by The Open Platform (TOP) in close collaboration with the Telegram team. The wallet was designed to make interacting with crypto seamless and easy.

 

Despite its initial legal challenge with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2018, the TON project continued to evolve. In 2023, TON Wallet was integrated with Telegram Mini Apps, contributing to significant growth and adoption in 2024. During that period, the wallet grew from a niche product to more than 100 million activated wallets.

 

In June this year, Toncoin (TON), the native cryptocurrency of the TON ecosystem, was rebranded to GRAM. According to Durov, the rebrand was intended to return the project to its original roots. He noted that Gram was the original name of TON's currency in its first white paper. "We're returning to our roots and starting a new chapter," Durov said in the announcement.

 

With the launch of the non-custodial wallet, users will no longer need to access existing wallets through bots or a separate section of the Telegram app. Instead, the wallet will be integrated directly into Telegram, making it easily accessible and enabling users to send and receive crypto at no cost.

 

 

Bank of America has announced the appointment of senior executives Kevin Milson and Sonali Theisen in its latest move to drive AI adoption and implementation across its global markets group.

 

Kevin Milson was named Head of Platforms and AI Transformation, where he will help lead the broader implementation of artificial intelligence across the bank's global markets platforms.

 

Sonali Theisen was appointed Head of Global Digital Assets Platform. In this new role, she will oversee the design and development of the bank's digital asset initiatives while retaining her current position as Head of Global FICC E Trading and Markets Strategic Investments.

 

FICC, short for Fixed Income, Currencies, and Commodities, is the division that handles sales, trading, market making, research, and risk management across several core asset classes for institutional clients.

 

According to a memo seen by Reuters, Amy Avery and her Analytics, Modeling and Insights team will also join the bank's Global Platforms group, where she will oversee data-driven insights across the company.

 

The move by Bank of America comes as several other financial institutions, particularly banks and asset managers, make strategic appointments in an effort to adopt and integrate blockchain technology into their infrastructure.

 

In January this year, Morgan Stanley appointed Amy Oldenburg to lead its digital asset strategy following the firm's filing for spot Bitcoin and Solana ETFs.

 

Royal Bank of Canada, JPMorgan, and Standard Chartered have also made strategic appointments, naming executives to lead and expand their digital asset strategies. Meanwhile, Vanguard, one of the world's largest asset managers, has announced that it is seeking its first Head of Digital Assets.

 

 

SBI Holdings, one of Japan's largest financial conglomerates, has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in Singapore-based crypto platform Coinhako, following approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

 

Image credit: x.com

 

According to an SBI press statement, the acquisition of Coinhako represents a significant step in advancing its global digital asset strategy. Through the acquisition, SBI Holdings aims to leverage Coinhako's customer base, expertise, and regional network alongside its own financial services, technology, and global network.

 

"Our group aims to create a global corridor for digital assets by connecting exchanges around the world, enabling investors worldwide to make optimal investments without being hindered by national borders or currency barriers," said Yoshitaka Kitao, Chairman and President of SBI Holdings, Inc.

 

"Singapore, where regulations related to digital assets are ahead of the curve, is a crucial region in this regard, and we are very pleased that Coinhako, with its solid customer base and business know-how, has joined the SBI Group."

 

SBI Holdings' acquisition of a majority stake in Coinhako comes shortly after the company partnered with the Solana Foundation to launch Japan's first on-chain financial market, which it said is intended to seamlessly connect Japan with Southeast Asia.

 

About Coinhako 

Launched in 2014, Coinhako is a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange often described as one of the longest-standing in the Asia-Pacific region. Its founders, Yusho Liu and Gerry Eng, built it with a simple goal: to make it easy for Asians, especially Singaporeans, to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with local fiat currencies.

 

Since its launch, Coinhako has grown into one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Singapore, serving nearly 400,000 users and processing more than $10 billion in crypto transactions over the past two years. Its assets under custody are reported to total around $1 billion to $1.1 billion, while its workforce has grown from a small team to several dozen employees.