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.

 

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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.

 

 

A U.K. court has sentenced three men for impersonating police officers and defrauding eight victims of more than £4 million ($5.4 million) worth of cryptocurrency.

 

According to the Metropolitan Police, the criminals called their victims, falsely claiming to be police officers and telling them that their crypto assets were at risk. They then persuaded the victims to provide their private credentials, which the trio used to transfer the funds to what the victims believed was a secure police account.

 

The Metropolitan Police also said the gang was highly organized and even created convincing police websites to deceive victims into believing they were legitimate. After receiving complaints from the victims in January 2025, officers launched an investigation into the case.

 

During the investigation, authorities identified common aliases, telephone numbers, websites, cryptocurrency wallets, and spending patterns that linked the gang together. Investigators also found that the suspects lived lavish lifestyles, despite one of them reporting an annual income of just £444.

 

Describing the investigation as highly complex and orchestrated by a group of calculated manipulators, Detective Inspector Geoff Donoghue of the Metropolitan Police's Cryptocurrency Unit said the team painstakingly traced the stolen funds while combining a range of investigative techniques to dismantle the criminal network.

 

The three men, Anthony Ikenwe, Hamza Bashir, and Kevin Nwamma, were convicted and sentenced at Southwark Crown Court.

 

Ikenwe, a resident of East Tilbury, was sentenced to six years in prison for conspiracy to commit fraud and five years for money laundering, with the sentences to run concurrently. Bashir, a resident of Wimbledon, was sentenced to three years and nine months for conspiracy to commit fraud and three years for money laundering, with the sentences to run concurrently.

 

Nwamma, a resident of Watford, was sentenced to six years for conspiracy to commit fraud and five years for money laundering, both sentences to run concurrently.

 

The sentencing comes around the same time that a court in Taiwan sentenced the founder of the Bitshine cryptocurrency exchange to 22 years in prison for using the platform to carry out a fraud scheme and launder money.

 

 

Humanity Protocol, the blockchain-based decentralized identity (DID) project, is pivoting toward enterprise AI following the June exploit that drained $36 million from the protocol's treasury.

 

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The pivot was revealed by the protocol's founder, Terence Kwok, on The Block's daily show, "The Starting Block." According to Kwok, the team had spent the last couple of months rethinking its direction, but the hack accelerated a shift that was already underway.

 

"I think, in light of the hack, we're probably moving forward by repositioning ourselves less as a blockchain company or an identity or decentralized ID project," Kwok told Gareth Jenkinson, anchor of The Block's daily show, during the interview.

 

As part of the repositioning, Kwok said the Humanity Protocol team would focus on building products and services tied to enterprise AI. According to him, identity will only become more relevant in a world increasingly shaped by AI.

 

Kwok also pushed back against earlier claims that the hack was a rug pull orchestrated by the team. In the aftermath of the exploit, on-chain investigator ZachXBT said the incident was "possibly staged" and that he was "not buying the team's story."

 

ZachXBT claimed the team had been "crime pumping" the protocol's H token for weeks and that the exploit was the best way for active market makers to exit. However, after analyzing on-chain evidence and laundering flows, he revised his assessment, concluding that the hack was caused by a private key compromise.

 

How the Hack Happened

 

The Humanity Protocol hack was caused by a serious operational security failure. The laptop of one of the protocol foundation members was compromised. Because the laptop contained multiple Gnosis Safe multisig keys, the attacker obtained enough signatures to gain control of the protocol's Hyperlane bridge ProxyAdmin.

 

Once granted admin privileges, the attacker drained the existing H tokens from the protocol's wallets and bridges. The attacker also upgraded contracts and minted roughly 200 million additional H tokens across Ethereum and BNB Chain.

 

As a result, about $36 million worth of H tokens, the protocol's native cryptocurrency, was lost. The H token also crashed by nearly 90%, falling from about $0.67 to $0.85 to as low as $0.05 to $0.13.

 

World, a fully on-chain, Solana native prediction market powered by Chainlink that aims to compete with Kalshi and Polymarket, has launched on Phantom Wallet.

 

Image credit: x.com 

 

According to the team, the World prediction market will allow users to predict outcomes on crypto price movements and the ongoing 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup. Additional markets across sports, geopolitics, and macroeconomics will be added in the coming weeks.

 

"Prediction markets are one of the most powerful applications you can build on a high-performance blockchain," said Pedro Miranda, Head of Consumer at the Solana Foundation. "World is designed to show what Solana makes possible: real-time markets, on-chain settlement, and a user experience that meets people where they are."

 

Unlike most prediction markets that require users to interact with centralized infrastructure, World is designed to operate entirely on-chain. Every market, every position, and every settlement happens on-chain; as such, users do not have to move their funds to any custodial or centralized entity, as they can interact directly with Solana liquidity.

 

The platform uses $CASH as its settlement stablecoin. Since it’s launched directly within the Phantom Wallet, World will be available to more than 20 million Phantom Wallet users. It is also important to note that this World project is entirely different from Sam Altman's World. This World is a prediction market project, while Sam Altman's World is an identity project.

 

World's launch comes at a time when prediction markets are gaining significant traction, especially since the start of the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup. Since early June, prediction market platforms, including Kalshi and Polymarket, have seen inflows of more than $3.8 billion.

 

Despite regulatory challenges in some jurisdictions, prediction market companies continue to grow and expand. Kalshi and Polymarket have both recently secured substantial funding from investors. Kalshi recently raised funding at a $22 billion valuation, while Polymarket raised $600 million at a $15 billion valuation and is reportedly in talks to raise an additional $400 million.