Odaily reports that Russian Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov stated that Russia has approximately 20 million cryptocurrency users, with citizens holding cryptocurrencies and related financial products totaling around $44 billion, and daily trading volume of about $595 million.Russia is advancing comprehensive regulation to clarify the rights and responsibilities of service providers, intermediaries, and investors; it plans to pursue criminal liability for illegally organized cryptocurrency trading activities starting July 1, 2027, while ordinary individual transactions are excluded. The Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank are studying the operational models and application scenarios of domestic stablecoins; if assets such as USDT and USDC are frozen due to actions by foreign issuers and Russian custodians are not at fault, related losses will in principle be borne by investors.

Odaily News: WeChat will continue to crack down on illegal and criminal activities such as pyramid schemes and fraud organized by certain accounts. Such activities typically use the pretext of national asset unfreezing, national policies, national projects, blockchain virtual currencies, or stablecoins, luring users with high returns to join group chats and recruit others, then stealing WeChat account passwords through suspicious links, inducing downloads of fraudulent apps, or requiring participation in check-ins, meetings, courses, and other activities to carry out scams.WeChat will take tiered measures against relevant accounts based on the severity of violations, including banning group functions, restricting certain features, and suspending accounts.

Odaily News: BVNK, the stablecoin payment infrastructure company under Mastercard, announced that clients can use the Stellar network through a unified API for cross-border payments, merchant payouts, and fund transfers. BVNK currently processes approximately $39 billion in annualized volume, covering more than 130 countries and regions; Mastercard completed its acquisition of BVNK in August of this year.

Odaily News: Reap, the payments company under Kraken parent Payward, has launched a virtual asset ledger that allows users of exchanges, wallets, neobanks, and fintech platforms to directly spend Bitcoin and other virtual asset balances via Visa cards issued by Reap. Payments are converted at real-time exchange rates without the need to pre-convert to stablecoins. Reap data shows that card spending funded by virtual assets reached $1.04 billion in July 2026.

Odaily News — The round was led by Variant, with participation from PayPal Ventures, Abstract Ventures, Road Capital, Mirana Ventures, First Commit, and Credibly Neutral. Atum does not issue stablecoins, operate a blockchain, or custody funds. Instead, it provides a cross-stablecoin, cross-chain coordination layer for global money flows, handling authorization, routing, and confirmation, and supports AI agent payments through protocols such as x402 and MPP.

Odaily News: Johnny Ng Kit-chong, a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council (Technology and Innovation constituency), stated in a keynote speech at the 2026 Shanghai Blockchain International Week and the 12th Global Blockchain Summit that new licensing regulations covering virtual asset trading services, custody, and other businesses are expected to be submitted to the Legislative Council for discussion in the second half of this year, with the aim of passing them in the second half of this year or early next year. By then, Hong Kong's digital asset-related licensing requirements will be essentially clarified.Johnny Ng stated that the setback of the U.S. CLARITY Act is more beneficial to Hong Kong in the long run; currently, two licensed stablecoin issuers in Hong Kong are testing different application scenarios.

Odaily reports that Arc officially announced that Circle's onchain FX engine StableFX is now live on the Arc mainnet. Arc is a public chain launched by Circle, designed for stablecoins and payment use cases; StableFX supports 24/7 settlement, enabling near-instant or delayed settlement, ensuring that both parties either receive funds simultaneously or neither receives funds, and supports trading with multiple vetted counterparties through a single contract, using a unified RFQ model for pricing. The global foreign exchange market has a daily trading volume of nearly $10 trillion, most of which still relies on traditional trading hours.

Odaily News: The fund was founded by Abu Dhabi-based investor and Further Ventures co-founder Mohamed Hamdy, with Thoro Capital Management serving as the manager and Mohamed Hamdy as Managing Partner. Thoro Capital Management will settle in USD via stablecoins and lend directly to digital asset institutions, with Hashed as the anchor investor. The fund employs a covenant-based underwriting approach, assessing borrowers' financial condition, cash flow, and management performance, aiming to alleviate the financing issues caused by traditional banks' regulated capital requirements and crypto lenders' reliance on asset-collateralized underwriting. Tokenized private credit has become the largest real-world asset (RWA) category by cumulative on-chain lending volume, with total loans exceeding $14 billion, while the traditional private credit market exceeds $3 trillion. Previously, Hashed obtained a financial services permission from the Abu Dhabi Global Market and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office.

Odaily reports: Michael Selig, Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), stated that regulators need to prepare for large-scale tokenization and adjust existing market rules for new technologies such as blockchain and AI. With the development of tokenization, on-chain finance, and 24/7 trading, the changes in financial markets over the next decade may exceed the sum of those over the past several decades. The CFTC will seek more ways to encourage market participants, exchanges, and clearinghouses to responsibly adopt stablecoins; over the past year, the agency has issued guidance and sought public comment on 24/7 trading in energy derivatives markets, and in February of this year, it included stablecoins issued by national trust banks within the scope of eligible collateral. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week released an "innovation exemption" to provide room for on-chain trading of tokenized stocks.

Odaily News: This acquisition will enhance Bookit's ability to provide crypto institutions with native travel and experience booking platform access services, and strengthen the tokenization capabilities of on-chain points and interoperable rewards. As part of the acquisition of Spree.Finance, Animoca Brands will become a strategic investor and shareholder of Superlogic, and its Chief Operating Officer Minh Do will join the Superlogic advisory board. Following the completion of the acquisition, the Bookit ecosystem will add 27 white-label partners including Kraken, MetaMask, and EtherFi, and open a travel, retail, and VIP experience network covering over 2 million merchants to partners and end users.