Paxful Holdings, which pleaded guilty last year to accusations from U.S. authorities that it had fostered illegal prostitution, violated money-laundering laws and knowingly handled criminal proceeds, was sentenced to pay a $4 million penalty, much reduced because of the business’ current ability to pay. The peer-to-peer bitcoin BTC$67,687.47 marketplace that had been popular in Africa…
Even a modest model portfolio allocation to crypto in Asia could drive massive inflows into the market, according to Nicholas Peach, head of APAC iShares at BlackRock. Speaking on a panel at Consensus Hong Kong, Peach said rising institutional acceptance of crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) — particularly in Asia — is reshaping expectations for the…
Hong Kong, one of the world’s major financial hubs, has long been committed to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology — but it faces a competitive challenge from the crypto-friendly UAE. This was a fact acknowledged by panelists Joseph Chan, under secretary for financial services and the treasury in Hong Kong, and Johnny Ng, founder of web3…
Wall Street bank JPMorgan is striking a constructive tone on crypto despite the plunge so far this year, arguing that institutional inflows and regulatory clarity could underpin the next leg higher for digital assets. “We are positive in crypto markets for 2026 as we expect a further rise in the digital asset flow but more…
Today’s AI trading bots are based on a limited amount of historical data which means totally unfamiliar market events like the 10/10 liquidations or even last week’s severe selloffs will leave agentic trading models short of the mark. These historical data-driven AI models have never seen huge liquidations on a single day and would find…
The Ethena-backed eSui Dollar (suiUSDe) has launched on Sui Mainnet, expanding the network’s stablecoin offerings and introducing the network’s first synthetic dollar to onchain trading and yield infrastructure, the Sui Foundation said in a blog post Wednesday. The rollout also brings suiUSDe to DeepBook Margin, where it becomes the first synthetic dollar supported by the…
Tokenized money market funds and digital bank deposits are shifting from experimental pilots to early-stage financial infrastructure, executives from Franklin Templeton, SWIFT and Ledger said Wednesday Consensus Hong Kong 2026. “Take traditional, existing financial instruments, make them cheaper, better faster, by putting them natively on chain,” said Franklin Templeton’s Chetan Karkhanis. The asset manager has…
HONG KONG — Hong Kong is ready to begin issuing the first of its stablecoin licenses next month, the Special Administration Region’s Financial Secretary said Wednesday. Hong Kong will only issue a small batch of licenses initially, Hong Kong’s Paul Chan Mo-Po said Wednesday at CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong conference. “In giving our licenses, we…
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is working with crypto-friendly tradfi firm Franklin Templeton to offer an institutional off-exchange collateral program, making digital markets more secure and capital-efficient. The new service allows eligible clients to use tokenized money market fund shares issued through Franklin Templeton’s Benji Technology Platform as off-exchange collateral to trade on Binance…
EMB: Feb. 11, 06:00 UTC Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Spark is pushing one of DeFi’s deepest pools of stablecoin liquidity further into institutional markets, unveiling new lending infrastructure designed to connect on-chain capital with off-chain borrowers that have largely stayed outside DeFi. The protocol introduced Spark Prime and Spark Institutional Lending in an announcement at…
