Composite 49Trend 10
Uphold Cuts Staff. The Money Now Goes to Its Bank-Facing Business
Uphold has cut its global headcount by 17%, laying off roughly 85 employees and contractors, CoinDesk reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The company is redirecting spending toward its enterprise business after nearly doubling headcount during what CEO Simon McLoughlin called a period of "extraordinary growth."
What Uphold Is Selling to Partners
Founded in 2015, Uphold operates a multi-asset platform covering cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies and precious metals. Alongside its consumer app, the company has been building an enterprise business that enables banks, fintechs and broker-dealers to add digital asset services through a single API.
"We're recalibrating after several years of extraordinary growth," McLoughlin said, pointing to the enterprise business as the part of the company now growing fast enough to justify shifting people and budget toward it.
The strategy reflects growing demand from financial institutions looking to add crypto trading and custody without building their own regulated infrastructure. Instead, banks and broker-dealers increasingly rely on API-based and white-label providers to launch digital asset services.
Consumer Ambitions Remain
The restructuring does not change Uphold's consumer roadmap. The company still plans to expand its retail app to compete with Robinhood and Coinbase by adding US stocks, tokenised securities, asset-backed lending and prediction markets before the end of 2026.
The layoffs therefore reflect a reallocation of investment rather than a retreat from consumer products. While the retail roadmap remains intact, Uphold is directing additional resources toward enterprise infrastructure as it seeks growth through banks, fintechs and broker-dealers.
The strategy leaves Uphold pursuing both sides of the market: consumer distribution through its app and infrastructure services for financial institutions.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 59Trend 40
BitMart Winds Down Trading as Exchange Closures Pile Up
BitMart is shutting down its trading operations. The exchange suspended new registrations, deposits, and new orders on July 26, 2026, and plans to stop all spot and futures trading at 01:00 UTC on August 26.
Withdrawals will stay open until January 31, 2027, though the company said requests may face extra compliance and identity checks.
Important NoticeAfter a careful evaluation of the Company's operating conditions, market environment, and future strategic direction, BitMart has made the difficult decision to commence an orderly wind-down of its trading platform operations. We deeply regret having to make… pic.twitter.com/KX3zczIrAh
— BitMart (@BitMartExchange) July 26, 2026
BitMart users have a month to close open positions before trading halts on August 26. Futures accounts are already restricted to reduce-only mode. Copy trading, staking, lending, and the platform's Launchpad will be discontinued in phases, each on its own schedule.
BMX, the exchange's native token, dropped as much as 60% within 24 hours of the announcement.
A String of Exchange Exits
BitMart is the third established crypto trading venue to exit in recent weeks. BitMEX, the exchange credited with inventing the perpetual swap, said days earlier it will close on September 23, 2026, ending an 11-year run; the company pointed to a strategic business review.
EXMO.com began winding down earlier this month after the UK government added it to its Russia-related sanctions list and is now cooperating with authorities on an orderly exit.
Outside crypto, multi-asset broker BDSwiss has also stopped onboarding new clients for its offshore retail business, and its global website is no longer functioning.
While each closure reflects different circumstances, the concentration of announcements within a single quarter highlights how difficult it has become for offshore trading venues to compete in a market increasingly dominated by the largest exchanges and tighter regulatory requirements.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 50Trend 10
Compliance Specialist at Exness Becomes Vanuatu’s Stablecoin Commissioner
Jackson Miake has become Vanuatu’s Commissioner of Stablecoins. His LinkedIn profile lists the role as a contract position with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Management beginning in July 2026.
Exness, where he worked from January to July 2026.
Vanuatu’s Parliament passed the Stablecoins Bill in 2025. The legislation provides for a Stablecoin Supervisory Commission, or SSC, alongside licensing for issuers, reserve requirements, disclosure obligations and regulatory supervision.
Under the legislation, the SSC is to appoint the Commissioner for a five-year term, with one possible reappointment. The selection must be based on merit and follow a “fair and transparent selection process”.
Those functions include convening SSC meetings, preparing agendas and minutes, coordinating the implementation and monitoring of its decisions, mobilising resources and preparing annual strategic plans and work programmes. The Commissioner also provides secretariat support to the SSC.
Recent Career History
Before joining Exness, Miake completed a Team Leader – Security Operations Centre internship at the SOC Australian Cyber Security Aide Centre from July to December 2025.
At publication, Finance Magnates found no public statement from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Management, the VFSC or the SSC explaining the appointment process or how the statutory eligibility requirements were assessed.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 49Trend 10
EU Adds HTX to Russia Sanctions Two Months After UK's Action Against Crypto Networks
The European Union has
added cryptocurrency exchange HTX to its latest package of sanctions against
Russia, expanding efforts to restrict financial networks that European
authorities say have helped Moscow bypass existing restrictions.
The package was
adopted yesterday (Thursday) and covers Russian banks, cryptocurrency service
providers, oil traders, the so-called shadow fleet and energy revenues. A list
released on Friday names 18 crypto-related companies that the EU said had
assisted Russian users in evading sanctions imposed over the war in Ukraine.
EU Action Follows Earlier UK Sanctions
The decision follows
similar action by the United Kingdom in May. At that time, British
authorities sanctioned HTX together with 17 other crypto-related businesses,
saying they formed part of financial networks supporting Russia's economy.
Earlier this month, Finance Magnates reported that one of those firms, EXMO,
started winding down operations after the UK sanctions disrupted access to
custodians and banking partners.
Finance Magnates has reached out to HTX for
comment on the EU sanctions. The company had not responded by the time of
publication.
The European Union has sanctioned crypto exchange HTX over claims it helped Russian users evade sanctions.HTX was included in a list of 18 crypto-related companies targeted in the EU’s latest sanctions package against Russia. pic.twitter.com/LgxJqbU4cB
— Satoshi Club (@esatoshiclub) July 24, 2026
Western Governments Increase Crypto
Sanctions Pressure
Formerly known as
Huobi, HTX was established
in China in 2013 and ranks among the world's largest cryptocurrency
exchanges. Hong Kong-based entrepreneur Justin Sun acquired a controlling
interest in the company in 2022. Despite that ownership change, HTX continues
to refer to Sun as an "advisor."
The EU measures are
part of broader efforts by Western governments to tighten enforcement of
sanctions against Russia and reduce the use of digital assets to move funds
outside the traditional financial system.
Sun has also been a
major supporter of World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency venture
co-founded by US President Donald Trump and his sons. Reports have indicated
that the relationship between Sun and the project has since weakened.
This article was written by Tareq Sikder at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 50Trend 10
BitMEX Is Closing, but the Perpetual Swap Is Just Getting Started
Eight months ago, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes argued that traditional exchanges would have to “adapt or die” as perpetual swaps spread beyond crypto. Now BitMEX itself is closing, while the exchanges it once challenged are beginning to adopt its defining product.
On 23 September 2026, BitMEX will close the exchange that gave crypto its dominant trading instrument. The perpetual swap will outlive the venue that created its modern crypto form and may be only at the start of its global expansion.
BitMEX’s closure is not a failure of perpetual swaps. The opposite is true. The exchange is disappearing just as the perpetual is moving from offshore crypto markets into regulated US venues, decentralized exchanges and traditional assets.
Dear BitMEX Users,Today, we share with a very heavy heart that BitMEX exchange will shut down its operations, effective 23 September 2026 at 04:00:00 UTC.The owner and operator of BitMEX, HDR Global Trading Limited, has made the difficult decision to close operations… pic.twitter.com/oWuqlh547f
— BitMEX (@BitMEX) July 23, 2026
The Anatomy of a Perpetual Contract
When perps, BitMEX did not just remove the expiry date from a futures contract. Such a contract has no natural point of convergence with the underlying asset, so it needs an entire market architecture to remain functional.
The funding rate creates recurring payments between longs and shorts to pull the contract toward the spot price.
The mark price reduces the risk that a temporary or manipulated last trade triggers liquidations.
The liquidation engine closes positions before losses exceed posted collateral.
The insurance fund absorbs deficits when liquidations cannot be completed at or above the bankruptcy price.
If that fund is insufficient, auto-deleveraging, or ADL, forcibly reduces profitable positions on the opposite side to preserve the exchange’s solvency. That final step protects the venue, but can transfer the cost of failed liquidations to winning traders.
BitMEX did not invent every component individually. Its achievement was combining them with continuous trading, crypto collateral, a central limit order book and very high leverage in a product traders could use at scale.
Read more: BitMEX, Pioneer of Crypto Perps, Closes Down Just as the Market Heats Up
How the 2018 Bear Market Made BitMEX
XBTUSD, launched in May 2016, became the template copied across the industry.
In my experience, the product found its clearest product-market fit during the 2018 bear market.
Spot markets work naturally for investors who want to buy and hold an asset. A falling market created demand for something different: a simple way to take a short position, hedge existing crypto exposure or remain market-neutral without repeatedly borrowing scarce assets in fragmented margin markets.
Dated futures existed, including CME’s cash-settled Bitcoin futures launched in December 2017, but they required traders to manage expiry dates, rolls and changing basis across maturities. The perpetual offered one continuously traded instrument.
The second engine of growth came from its funding mechanism.
When demand for leveraged longs pushed the perpetual above spot, funding turned positive. Traders could buy Bitcoin spot, short the perpetual and collect funding while remaining broadly delta-neutral. Known as basis trades in crypto, their returns came primarily from funding rather than a directional view. Funding could reverse; unlike dated futures, there was no settlement date forcing convergence.
Read CySEC Chair's view on crypto perps.
These trades mattered enormously for liquidity. Directional demand created an imbalance; professional traders were paid to take the other side. The perpetual did not only attract speculators. It converted speculative pressure into an incentive for arbitrageurs and market makers to commit capital.
Having operated both a crypto exchange and a market-making firm, I saw perpetuals become essential tools for inventory and client-flow hedging, cross-venue arbitrage, funding trades and relative-value strategies.
Retail traders liked the same product for a different reason: it offered straightforward leveraged exposure, long or short, in a market that never closed.
Together, professional hedging and arbitrage on one side and retail directional demand on the other created the liquidity flywheel that made perpetuals the dominant crypto-native derivative.
BitMEX proved that a single highly liquid perpetual could anchor an entire exchange. Its competitors then broadened the model across altcoins, stablecoin collateral and integrated spot and derivatives markets.
One important part of that expansion was the shift in collateral architecture. BitMEX’s original XBTUSD was an inverse contract margined in Bitcoin. It was elegant for a Bitcoin-native funding trade: a trader could own Bitcoin, post it as collateral and short the perpetual.
But the structure was less convenient for ordinary directional trading, multi-asset portfolios and dollar-based risk management. For a leveraged long, a falling Bitcoin price could hurt both the position and the dollar value of the collateral supporting it.
The Move to Dollar-Margined Contracts
Linear USDT- and USDC-margined perpetuals allowed competitors to serve a much broader market. Notional, collateral and profit and loss could all be measured in dollars, while a single stablecoin balance could support positions across hundreds of assets. Risk management, accounting and capital allocation became easier for both traders and market makers.
This was not simply a technical improvement. It helped transform perpetuals from a Bitcoin-native product into the standard derivative across the entire crypto market.
Bybit, Binance, OKX and other exchanges broadened perpetuals across altcoins far faster than BitMEX could move beyond its original Bitcoin-centred model. They paired derivatives with spot markets, stablecoin balances, broader retail distribution and aggressive market-maker programmes.
BitMEX later added spot, stablecoin-margined products and traditional-asset perpetuals, but by then the liquidity network had shifted.
This is the central lesson of BitMEX’s decline:
An exchange’s product is not its contract specification. Its product is liquidity.
Liquidity is reflexive. Traders prefer the venue with the best depth and execution.
Market makers allocate more capital where order flow is strongest. Their quotes improve execution, which attracts more traders and generates still more order flow.
Once that cycle reverses, spreads widen, slippage increases and market makers reduce capital because the opportunity no longer compensates for inventory and adverse-selection risk.
An exchange can copy features quickly. Rebuilding a lost liquidity network is much harder.
Once liquidity begins to migrate, technical reliability becomes even more important. Traders may tolerate occasional disruption on the market’s dominant venue; they are less forgiving once credible alternatives exist.
That became clear during the March 2020 market crash. A violent liquidation cascade collided with rapidly disappearing order-book liquidity. Its insurance fund survived, but the episode demonstrated how leverage, automated liquidations and platform disruption could reinforce one another during a market shock.
March 2020 did not cause BitMEX’s decline, but it weakened confidence at a time when traders already had increasingly liquid alternatives. Regulatory enforcement later that year dealt a much more serious blow.
US authorities brought charges in October 2020; BitMEX later agreed to a $100 million civil settlement, and the corporate entity received another $100 million criminal penalty in 2025 over AML failures.
The enforcement actions damaged management continuity, market access and institutional confidence at the same time competitors were taking liquidity.
But regulation alone did not kill BitMEX. It struck a venue whose defining invention had already become a commodity and whose competitors had built broader ecosystems around it.
The next phase is now visible.
Perpetuals Go Mainstream
In 2026, the CFTC approved Kalshi’s BTCPERP, the first regulated US bitcoin perpetual, and opened a route for other US exchanges to list true digital-commodity perpetual futures.
On-chain venues are pushing the format further. Between them, Hyperliquid, Lighter and Aster support perpetual markets on crypto, oil, gold, silver, equities, equity indices, foreign exchange and private-company exposures.
During geopolitical escalation in the Middle East, oil perpetuals traded through the weekend while conventional commodity markets were closed.
That does not make them risk-free or perfectly equivalent to the underlying market. When the main cash or futures venue is closed, market makers cannot hedge normally. Spreads can widen, liquidity can disappear and the perpetual may become an independent price signal.
The same architecture that offers continuous access can also transmit liquidations continuously. The October 2025 liquidation cascade showed one modern cost of ADL: a venue can preserve its solvency by breaking the profitable leg of an otherwise delta-neutral hedge.
Still, the direction is clear. Perpetuals are becoming a standardized format for 24/7 synthetic exposure.
They may increasingly challenge contracts for difference, or CFDs, which also offer non-expiring leveraged exposure but are typically distributed through brokers and fragmented across separate liquidity arrangements. A perpetual on a common order book can bring multiple market makers and traders into one liquidity pool, with visible prices and explicit funding.
Perpetuals will not replace dated futures. Maturity-specific hedging, forward curves and calendar spreads remain essential. But they may become crypto’s first financial invention to materially reshape the trading of traditional assets.
BitMEX will disappear as an exchange. Its architecture is spreading into regulated markets, decentralized venues and assets that have never traded continuously before.
Few companies have won so completely at the product level while losing so decisively at the platform level.
This article was written by Anton Golub at www.financemagnates.com.
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MiCA Is Not Only for Crypto. It Will Also Decide Prediction Markets’ European Future
While the industry spent the summer
arguing about stablecoin reserves and DeFi certification schemes, the most
consequential question in European crypto policy slipped in almost unnoticed.
On May 20, 2026, the
European Commission opened a targeted consultation on the review of the Markets
in Crypto-Assets Regulation, and for the first time, Brussels is formally
asking whether DLT-based prediction markets belong inside the EU rulebook, and
if so, which one.
The deadline was originally August 31.
It has since been quietly pushed to September 30, 2026,
according to the Commission's consultation page.
That extension is more than an
administrative footnote. It is the last window the prediction market industry
will get to shape the rules before the Commission drafts its mandated report to
the European Parliament and Council, due by June 30, 2027, under Articles 140
and 142 of MiCA, a report that may arrive “accompanied by a new legislative
proposal.”
In simple words, it means that whatever lands in that
consultation inbox by September 30 will echo through European law for the next
decade.
The Question Brussels Is Really Asking
The consultation document, prepared by
DG FISMA's digital finance unit, identifies
prediction markets alongside DeFi, staking, lending, NFTs, perpetual futures,
and tokenized deposits as fast-growing activities that currently sit
outside MiCA's scope.
The core question posed to respondents is deceptively
simple: should
DLT-based prediction markets and crypto perpetuals be governed by MiCA, the
bespoke crypto framework, or by MiFID II, the EU's far stricter regime for
traditional financial instruments?
The distinction is existential. Under MiCA, a prediction market operator could conceivably become a licensed crypto-asset service provider and passport across the European Economic Area member states. Under MiFID
II, event contracts with binary payouts run headlong into the EU's
product-intervention machinery, the same apparatus that banned binary options
for retail clients across the bloc in 2018.
And Europe's supervisors have already
shown their hand. On July 3, 2026, ESMA issued a public statement declaring
that event
contracts whose underlyings fall within MiFID II's Annex I qualify as
financial instruments and are therefore captured by the national binary options
prohibitions on marketing, distribution, or sale to retail clients.
In one
stroke, the EU's markets watchdog tied the hottest product category in global
trading to a framework designed to keep retail out.
A $44 Billion Market Meets a Wall of
Enforcement
The timing is no accident. Combined
monthly volume on Kalshi and Polymarket hit $44.8 billion in June 2026, more
than triple the average monthly handle of every legal US sportsbook combined in
2025.
Kalshi's latest funding round reportedly valued the firm at roughly $22
billion, and ICE's $2 billion bet on Polymarket signalled that Wall Street
infrastructure players see event contracts as an asset class, not a novelty.
Europe's response has been anything but
welcoming. Portugal ordered ISPs to block the platforms in March 2026. Spain
opened sanction proceedings against both Kalshi and Polymarket in May for
operating without gambling licenses.
In mid-June, nine gambling regulators,
spanning Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal,
Spain, and Switzerland, signed a joint declaration to coordinate enforcement
against unlicensed prediction-market platforms.
The result is a jurisdictional pincer:
gambling authorities attacking from one flank, securities regulators from the
other, and no purpose-built framework anywhere in between. The MiCA review
consultation is the first and possibly only official acknowledgment from
Brussels that this vacuum needs filling by design rather than by enforcement.
The Transatlantic Split Widens
The contrast with Washington could
hardly be sharper. On June 10, the CFTC published a 267-page proposed
rulemaking laying out which sports and event contracts are permitted, a
constructive, if complex, path toward a stable federal regime. The US is carving
categories; Europe is building walls.
That divergence carries real commercial
stakes. If the MiCA review concludes that prediction contracts are MiFID
financial instruments, full stop, EU retail access is effectively finished, and
operators face a choice between institutional-only European desks and wholesale
retreat.
If, instead, respondents persuade the Commission that a calibrated
MiCA-style regime, disclosure, custody, market-integrity rules, without the
binary-options ban, is workable, Europe could yet become a licensed home for
the industry rather than its largest geoblocked territory.
LATEST: ⚡ MiCA-compliant euro stablecoins grew 128% in market cap to $673.9M in the year before Europe’s MiCA transition period ended, according to Decta. pic.twitter.com/DHPQwoFNxS
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) July 7, 2026
Industry lawyers are already framing the
stakes. Skadden titled its client briefing on the consultation “Fit for
Purpose?” and that is precisely the question. MiCA was drafted before
prediction markets existed at scale. The review is the mechanism for catching
up.
The Clock Is Running
The consultation is targeted at a
specialist audience: CASPs, issuers, supervisors, central banks, finance
ministries, but responses are submitted through an open EU Survey portal, and
nothing stops exchanges, market makers, or trade associations from weighing in.
Given that ESMA has already staked out the restrictive position, silence from
the industry between now and September 30 will be read as consent.
Prediction markets spent 2026 proving
they can price everything from elections to inflation better than pundits can.
The irony is that the one event that matters most to their European future,
what Brussels decides to do with them, is the one contract nobody can trade.
The odds will be set the old-fashioned way: by whoever bothers to show up
before the deadline.
This article was written by Badea Alexandru Gabriel at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 48Trend 10
Five Regulatory Moves This Week That Will Shape Crypto Trading in the Second Half of 2026
This week regulators were busy defining where crypto trading can happen, which intermediaries can provide access, how assets get cleared, and when offshore platforms fall outside the permitted perimeter.
Brokers and exchanges are getting clearer routes into supervised crypto markets, while activity outside licensed channels is getting harder to sustain.
BitMEX Exits as US Perpetual Routes Expand
BitMEX will close on 23 September after what the exchange described as a strategic review, ending an 11-year history for one of the platforms that helped popularise crypto perpetuals.
The company did not link the decision to recent US regulatory developments. Those developments nevertheless mean US brokers and exchanges now have regulated ways to offer or access perpetuals.
Bitnomial and Kalshi can list products on regulated US exchanges, while Coinbase Financial Markets can provide access to qualifying Deribit contracts through its registered futures commission merchant.
The available route depends on the listing venue, the intermediary and the underlying asset.
SEC Closes Coinbase Records Dispute
The SEC agreed to pay Coinbase $150,000 in legal fees to settle a two-year Freedom of Information Act lawsuit tied to records from the agency's earlier crypto enforcement campaign.
An inspector general review found that text messages from former Chair Gary Gensler's device were lost after an automated policy triggered a wipe. The settlement ends the litigation without a court ruling on the underlying FOIA claims.
The payment itself is small, but the agency record-keeping is now folded into the broader debate over how crypto enforcement policy was developed and scrutinised.
Russia Sets July 2027 Licensing Deadline
Russia's State Duma adopted legislation requiring crypto exchanges, exchange offices, and custodians to obtain licences by 1 July 2027. Most provisions take effect in September 2026.
After the transition period, domestic crypto transactions must go through authorised organisations, and banks will be required to reject transfers outside the approved framework.
Banks, brokers, and asset managers will be able to offer crypto services if they meet additional requirements.
Retail access will also tighten. Clients will face suitability testing and a RUB 300,000 annual limit through each intermediary.
Prometheum Names First Clearing Client
Velocity Capital became the first publicly disclosed client of Prometheum Capital's omnibus correspondent clearing service. The arrangement covers execution, custody, clearing, and settlement for digital assets.
The service lets broker-dealers add crypto and tokenised products without building their own custody systems or connecting directly to wallets and blockchains.
The announcement confirms adoption, however, the companies did not disclose supported assets, launch timing, volumes, or commercial terms.
Vietnam Targets Offshore Exchange Use
Vietnam will fine individuals who trade digital assets through providers lacking Ministry of Finance approval from 1 September. Fines can reach VND 50 million, rising to VND 100 million for assets reserved for foreign investors.
The country's pilot framework will license no more than five exchanges. Applicants must have at least VND 10 trillion in capital, foreign ownership is capped at 49%, and all transactions must be settled in Vietnamese dong.
Offshore platforms serving Vietnamese clients will need stronger geofencing, identity checks, and access controls to stay on the right side of the rule.
Taken together, these developments point in the same regulatory direction. The debate is moving beyond whether crypto markets should be supervised and towards how trading, clearing and market access should be organised.
The answers to those questions are likely to shape how brokers expand regulated crypto offerings over the coming months.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 53Trend 10
What Does BitMEX’s Closure Reveal About New US Routes for Crypto Perpetuals?
Crypto perpetuals finally have defined regulatory routes in the US. That was not the case when offshore exchanges such as BitMEX built the market.
BitMEX will shut its exchange on 23 September after an 11-year run, providing a timely opportunity to examine how those regulatory routes now work.
The company said the decision followed a strategic review, and neither BitMEX nor the CFTC has linked it to recent regulatory changes.
Why Did Crypto Perpetuals Spend Years Offshore?
Early crypto venues built perpetuals outside the US because no practical domestic route existed for the product. At the same time, the CFTC applied heightened scrutiny to digital-asset derivatives through staff advisories issued in 2018 and 2023.
BitMEX used an offshore, direct-access model. The CFTC alleged in 2020 that it nevertheless accepted orders and funds from US customers without registering as a futures commission merchant.
The regulator also cited inadequate know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering controls. BitMEX settled with the CFTC and FinCEN for $100 million in 2021.
What Changed in the US Regulatory Approach?
In March 2025, the CFTC withdrew both advisories. It said the 2018 measure was no longer needed because of greater staff experience and market maturity. The 2023 advisory was withdrawn to make clear that digital-asset derivatives would be treated like other derivatives products.
Acting Chair Caroline Pham then opened a consultation on perpetual contracts in April. That month, regulated exchange Bitnomial self-certified BTC/USD perpetual futures and began institutional trading.
In May 2026, the CFTC formally approved Kalshi's bitcoin perpetual, issued a wider policy statement and published guidance for round-the-clock trading, clearing and settlement.
It also confirmed that certain Deribit perpetuals described in Coinbase Financial Markets’ request could be treated as foreign futures and granted related no-action relief.
Chairman Michael Selig said the policy aimed to bring offshore liquidity under US oversight and manage leverage, volatility and systemic risk inside a regulated framework.
Why Can US Firms Offer Perpetuals Today When BitMEX Could Not?
The key difference is the regulatory wrapper.
Bitnomial and Kalshi are designated contract markets: CFTC-regulated exchanges subject to rules for market integrity, surveillance and risk management. Bitnomial used self-certification, while Kalshi sought and received formal approval.
Coinbase uses another route. Its registered futures commission merchant can connect customers to qualifying contracts on Deribit, a foreign venue, under the foreign-futures framework and the conditions in the CFTC letter.
Deribit is still a non-US exchange, but customers can access it through a regulated US intermediary.
Does BitMEX's Closure Signal the End of Offshore Perpetuals?
The available evidence does not support that conclusion. Binance and OKX accounted for roughly 33% and 15%, respectively, of volume among the 11 centralised perpetual exchanges tracked by CoinGecko from January to April 2026.
Other research produced different estimates, but also placed them among the leaders.
BitMEX had already lost its earlier dominance: by April 2020, its daily bitcoin futures volume trailed Binance, OKEx and Huobi. No reliable data reviewed here show that liquidity has moved specifically from offshore platforms to CFTC-regulated venues since 2025.
What Does This Mean for Brokers and Exchanges?
Firms now have defined ways to list domestic perpetuals or intermediate foreign ones.
However those routes bring operational obligations.
The CFTC's 24/7 guidance highlights margin and customer-fund risks when banks are closed.
Futures brokers must ensure that customers receive appropriate disclosures about extended-hours risks and consider whether existing disclosures and risk policies need updating.
Exchanges and clearing houses must assess resilience, staffing and risk controls, and file relevant rule changes. The CFTC encourages firms to engage with staff before launch.
Where Is the Market Heading Next?
The new framework does not amount to blanket permission. The CFTC said perpetuals referencing underlyings not contemplated in the Kalshi order should undergo case-by-case review.
Kalshi’s approval covers a cash-settled bitcoin contract.
Coinbase Financial Markets’ relief applies to certain Deribit products and remains subject to specified conditions. Outside the US, OKX offers perpetuals linked to major US equities and exchange-traded funds in supported jurisdictions.
It also began offering contracts referenced to licensed ICE Brent and WTI prices in July under its data partnership with Intercontinental Exchange.
These developments operate through different jurisdictions, venues and access models. They do not constitute a single global rulebook.
For brokers and exchanges, the immediate change is narrower: perpetuals now have identifiable regulated routes in the US, but the available route depends on who lists the contract, who intermediates access and what underlying asset it references.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 56Trend 10
BitMEX, Pioneer of Crypto Perps, Closes Down Just as the Market Heats Up
BitMEX, the derivative exchange that revolutionised crypto trading with the invention of the perpetual swap, has announced it will shut down its platform on 23 September 2026.
In a statement released today (Thursday), HDR Global Trading Limited, the exchange's owner and operator, confirmed that new account registrations have ceased with immediate effect.
Dear BitMEX Users,Today, we share with a very heavy heart that BitMEX exchange will shut down its operations, effective 23 September 2026 at 04:00:00 UTC.The owner and operator of BitMEX, HDR Global Trading Limited, has made the difficult decision to close operations… pic.twitter.com/oWuqlh547f
— BitMEX (@BitMEX) July 23, 2026
Crypto Perps Are Heating Up Onshore
The decision follows a strategic review of the business and the broader cryptocurrency landscape, bringing a formal end to one of the industry's most influential pioneers.
BitMEX popularised crypto perpetual swaps, or crypto perps, during the 2017-18 market surge. Operating largely from its offshore base, the platform allowed speculative traders to trade Bitcoin against the US dollar with up to 100x leverage.
Unlike traditional futures contracts, perpetuals have no expiration date, settling ongoing funding rates multiple times a day to track spot prices.
It is a striking reversal for a product that has become a darling of speculative retail crypto trading.
For years, crypto perps existed almost entirely offshore, with US retail investors effectively excluded from compliant access.
That dynamic shifted dramatically across 2025 and 2026 as the CFTC, the US regulator, paved the way for onshore crypto perps.
Under my leadership, the @CFTC is onshoring crypto perpetual contracts under gold standard regulations.The Biden administration drove perps offshore to jurisdictions that had ZERO investor protections, leading to disasters like the FTX implosion.Instead, we believe that… pic.twitter.com/GKuQdWwMsd
— Mike Selig (@ChairmanSelig) June 11, 2026
Under guidance aimed at repatriating liquidity, regulated entities such as Kalshi and Coinbase introduced domestic perpetual products.
This transition brought one of crypto’s most lucrative grey-market instruments into the mainstream, eroding the competitive edge long held by unregulated offshore venues.
It’s also worth mentioning that BitMEX also faced severe regulatory pressure, including a US$100 million fine following a guilty plea for Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering violations.
Winding Down Operations
BitMEX has outlined a strict timetable for winding down its services. The platform will operate normally until 26 August at 04:00 UTC, after which risk limits will enforce a reduce-only mode, preventing traders from opening new positions. Before the final closure on 23 September, the exchange will progressively force-close existing positions to ensure an orderly market unwind.
After 23 September, BitMEX will cease all trading services. Users will retain limited account access solely to view transaction histories and withdraw remaining balances.
All staked BMEX tokens have been immediately unstaked and returned to user accounts.
Capital left on the platform post-closure will incur a monthly maintenance fee of 50 US dollars or 1 percent per annum, whichever is greater.
BitMEX has warned users to guard against phishing scams and noted that strict security checks may introduce temporary delays during peak withdrawal periods.
What Happens Next?
The closure leaves thousands of high-leverage traders searching for replacement venues. This will surely see competitors across the crypto space launch campaigns to capture this displaced liquidity with welcome bonuses and deposit-matching offers.
However, as regulation allows flows to move from offshore, lightly regulated exchanges to onshore entities, the announced winddown of what defined the original offshore perp model may be more than symbolic.
BitMEX’s retreat could also signal a broader realignment in this space.
This article was written by Adonis Adoni at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 54Trend 10
Cheques and Balances: Former Forex.com and Invast Director Sentenced Over Suspected Scam Proceeds
Brendan Gunn has been sentenced in the Local Court of NSW for dealing with more than AU$180,000 when it was reasonable to suspect the funds were proceeds of crime.
He received 12 months' imprisonment, to be released immediately upon entering a $3,000 recognizance requiring good behaviour for 12 months. The maximum penalty for a summary prosecution of this offence is 12 months.
Banks Flagged Suspicious Activity Repeatedly
From December 2018, Gunn served as a director of Mormarkets, which traded as Coinshype and received deposits from Australians for cryptocurrency and other purported investments. Between January 2019 and May 2020, 22 separate bank accounts were opened in Mormarkets' name across six financial institutions.
On several occasions, banks told Gunn they had received complaints that funds credited to Mormarkets accounts were linked to fraud or suspicious activity.
All accounts tied to the company were eventually closed by the banks.
When two of those accounts were shut, Gunn received two bank cheques covering investment amounts totalling AU$181,000. He then sent the cheques to an associate.
He pleaded guilty in January 2026 to dealing with money reasonably suspected of being proceeds of crime, following a guilty plea Finance Magnates reported on at the time, which also detailed how he continued opening new accounts after banks flagged suspicious activity.
ASIC Chair Sarah Court said Gunn ignored clear warnings, including customer complaints made to Mormarkets' banks, about money linked to suspected scam activity, and that by continuing to deal with those funds he helped move money taken from Australians.
A Career Rooted in CFD and Forex Brokerages
Gunn's route into Mormarkets followed a long run in Australia's CFD and forex industry. He spent six years at GAIN Capital's Forex.com brand, serving as Director of Global Client Services for Asia-Pacific from 2006 to 2013.
In 2013, Japanese broker Invast Securities recruited him to establish and lead its Australian subsidiary, where he secured the unit's AFSL licence from ASIC and built a sales team of more than 25 people as CEO of Invast Financial Services until 2015. He was later briefly associated with GMT Markets in 2018 before joining Mormarkets.
ASIC said the sentencing forms part of a broader effort to disrupt scams, including coordinating the removal of more than 25,000 scam and phishing websites since 2023.
Quarterly data from ScamWatch and ReportCyber recorded 60,657 scam reports and $248.3 million in losses in the first three months of 2026. The regulator's other recent actions include a $35 million penalty against HSBC over scam protection failures and the cancellation of Capital Guard's AFS licence over a fake bond sale.
This article was written by Arnab Shome at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 54Trend 10
SEC Settles FOIA Suit With Coinbase. Agency Pays $150,000 Over Lost Gensler Text Messages
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has agreed to pay $150,000 in legal fees to settle a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Coinbase.
The suit closes a two-year dispute over internal records from the agency's crypto enforcement campaign under former Chair Gary Gensler.
The agency's inspector general found in 2025 that text messages from a key period, including the aftermath of the FTX collapse, were lost after an automated policy triggered an enterprise wipe of his device.
"Unlike the SEC in the previous administration, this SEC acknowledges that what it did was wrong and wants to make sure it doesn't happen again," Paul Grewal, chief legal officer of Coinbase said in interview with Bloomberg.
FDIC Settled a Related Dispute in February
Coinbase's litigation targeted both the SEC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, arguing that regulators pressured banks to cut ties with crypto firms, a pattern the industry labelled "Operation Choke Point 2.0."
The FDIC settled its part of the case in February, paying more than $188,000 in legal fees and releasing correspondence that Coinbase said showed the agency discouraging banks from crypto-related activity.
SEC Has Dropped Several Crypto Cases since 2025
Since the change in administration, the SEC has dropped a series of major crypto enforcement actions, including its lawsuit against Coinbase, and is drafting rules that would let brokers offer blockchain-based stocks.
The settlement follows a run of 2026 crypto listings, including Circle, BitGo, and Bullish. For Coinbase, it closes one of the legal actions the company filed against federal regulators over their handling of crypto policy during 2022–2024.
The FDIC and SEC cases were part of the same litigation track; both have now been resolved through fee settlements rather than court rulings on the underlying FOIA claims.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 49Trend 10
Payward Taps GTN to Expand xStocks into Hong Kong and Other Global Markets
GTN and Payward, the
parent company of Kraken and developer of the xStocks tokenised equities
framework, have entered into a partnership to expand the range of assets
available through xStocks.
The announcement
follows Payward's recent expansion of xStocks. In June, the company said it
would allow eligible retail investors to participate in tokenised US IPO
allocations through the framework. At the time, Payward said xStocks had
processed more than $30 billion in transaction volume across more than 125,000
holders.
GTN Backs xStocks Beyond US Equities
Under the new
partnership, the companies will initially bring Hong Kong-listed equities to
the xStocks framework before expanding to the UK, European and South Korean
equities. They said the collaboration is also intended to support future
expansion into additional asset classes, subject to regulatory approvals.
GTN will provide
execution, custody and infrastructure for the traditional assets
underlying the tokenised products. The company said its platform covers
more than 90 markets through a single integration, enabling xStocks to expand
beyond its existing focus on US-listed equities.
In addition, GTN will provide ledgering and
record-keeping infrastructure to help issuers manage the underlying assets
backing tokenised products. Subject to obtaining the required licences in each
jurisdiction, GTN plans to make selected xStocks products available to its
institutional clients alongside its existing investment offering.
Ankit Shah, Global
Head of FinTech at GTN, said financial institutions want access to additional
markets and asset classes without replacing existing technology. He said GTN's
infrastructure supports expansion across "90+ markets" and includes the
accounting technology needed for tokenised products.
xStocks Eyes Global Tokenised Asset
Expansion
The companies added
that the partnership could also broaden the range of assets available across
the xStocks ecosystem, which is already distributed through more than 100
exchanges, self-custody wallets and decentralised finance applications.
Mark Greenberg, Global
Head of Payward Services, said traditional capital markets remain fragmented by
geography and trading hours. He said "the biggest asset class that hasn't
been tokenized yet is the rest of the world" and that the collaboration is
intended to bring "global capital markets onchain."
The partnership is
already operational, the companies said, with distribution to GTN's
institutional clients expected once the necessary regulatory licences are
obtained. Launched about a year ago with tokenised US stocks and ETFs, xStocks
has since expanded to more than 500 tokenised equities, ETFs and IPOs.
This article was written by Tareq Sikder at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 56Trend 10
Russia Gives Crypto Firms Until July 2027 to Obtain Licences Under New Market Rules
Russia’s State Duma has adopted legislation creating a regulated cryptocurrency market, Exchanges, custodians and other service providers must obtain licences under the new framework until 1 July 2027.
From that date, cryptocurrency trading inside Russia will be required to pass through licensed intermediaries, while banks must reject transfers that fall outside the authorised regime. Most provisions of the law take effect on 1 September 2026.
Regulated Infrastructure for Crypto Trading
The legislation introduces a licensing regime for crypto exchanges, crypto exchange offices and digital custodians, allowing both existing financial institutions and new specialist firms to participate in the market.
Digital custodians will be responsible for recording rights to crypto assets, while exchange offices will facilitate purchases and sales.
Banks, brokers and asset managers will also be permitted to provide cryptocurrency services, provided they comply with additional prudential requirements.
Trading may take place through brokers and organised markets alongside licensed exchange operators.
Once the transition period ends on 1 July 2027, crypto transactions within Russia will be required to pass through regulated organisations.
Banks will be obliged to reject transfers that fall outside the authorised framework.
Investor Rules and Cross-Border Use
The law allows both retail and qualified investors to purchase cryptocurrencies after completing a mandatory suitability assessment.
Retail investors will be limited to liquid cryptocurrencies approved by the Bank of Russia and may invest up to RUB 300,000 per year through each intermediary. Qualified investors will also undergo testing but will not face investment limits.
The legislation maintains Russia’s existing prohibition on using cryptocurrencies as a domestic means of payment. At the same time, exporters and importers may use cryptocurrencies without restrictions for cross-border settlements, either through regulated intermediaries or directly using any type of wallet or cryptocurrency.
The main provisions enter into force on 1 September 2026, while several measures, including additional anti-fraud rules, will apply from September 2027.
Market participants have until 1 July 2027 to obtain the necessary licences and bring their operations into compliance with the new regulatory framework.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 48Trend 10
TradFi Perpetuals Become Crypto Exchanges' Fastest-Growing Segment. Bitget Ranks Second Behind Binance
Bitget generated nearly $70 billion in TradFi perpetual trading volume during the second quarter, ranking second behind only Binance. TokenInsight's latest exchange industry report identifies the segment as one of crypto exchanges' fastest-growing product categories.
Competition among crypto exchanges is expanding beyond crypto-native assets. As venues roll out tokenised equities, commodities, ETFs and pre-IPO exposure, TradFi perpetuals have become a source of trading activity and product differentiation.
TokenInsight describes the segment as having moved from an experimental offering to an established competitive market for exchanges.
TradFi Perpetuals Gain Momentum
TradFi perpetual trading volumes climbed from $52 billion in January to $268 billion in June, accounting for more than 15% of total derivatives volume on several peak trading days, according to TokenInsight.
Commodity-linked contracts initially generated most activity, but equity perpetuals overtook them as the primary driver, surging from $45 billion in May to $141 billion in June.
The market remains concentrated. Binance led with approximately $380 billion in quarterly TradFi perpetual volume and roughly a 60% market share, while Bitget ranked second with nearly $70 billion. OKX and MEXC followed closely with around $69 billion each.
For Bitget, TradFi perpetuals represented 8.61% of total derivatives trading volume during the quarter — one of the highest penetration rates among major centralised exchanges, just behind Binance's 8.65%.
The exchange also maintained a top-three position across both commodity and equity perpetuals, while its share of futures open interest increased from 7.81% in the first quarter to 8.58% in Q2, among the strongest gains tracked by TokenInsight.
Exchanges Expand Tokenised Market Access
Bitget's launch of IPO Prime and Stocks 2.0 was part of a broader industry push to expand access to tokenised equities and pre-IPO products.
During the quarter, Binance, Bybit, Gate, MEXC and OKX also introduced or expanded stock trading, tokenised securities and related offerings.
"The data points to a market that is starting to catch up with the vision behind our Universal Exchange," Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said. "Investors don't want separate platforms for crypto and traditional finance; they want frictionless access to opportunities across both."
Overall crypto exchange trading volume declined 8% quarter over quarter to $16.5 trillion, even as TradFi perpetual volume nearly quintupled between January and June.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 54Trend 10
Prometheum Lands First Disclosed Client for SEC-Regulated Omnibus Crypto Clearing Service
Prometheum has disclosed the first client for one of its flagship infrastructure services after years of questions over whether its SEC-regulated crypto brokerage model could attract real customers.
The company is positioning itself as a back-end provider for traditional broker-dealers seeking access to digital assets and tokenised securities through familiar brokerage workflows.
From Regulatory Approvals to Infrastructure Deployment
Under the arrangement, Velocity Capital will use Prometheum Capital for crypto asset execution, custody, clearing, and settlement. The omnibus correspondent clearing model allows broker-dealers to offer digital asset products without developing their own custody infrastructure or integrating directly with blockchain and wallet technology.
Prometheum said the service is part of its Digital Brokerage Solutions platform, which is designed to support crypto assets, including tokenised securities, digitally native securities, and selected crypto tokens within traditional brokerage accounts.
DTCC, in which Velocity Capital also participated.
A Closely Watched Player in Regulated Crypto Markets
Gary Gensler’s tenure.
digital assets that fit within the securities framework.
That skepticism has often centred mostly on whether there would be enough issuers and broker-dealers willing to use the platform.
The Velocity Capital agreement provides an example of early customer adoption for one part of Prometheum’s infrastructure.
The companies did not specify which assets will be supported, when customer trading will begin, expected transaction volumes, commercial terms, or whether the correspondent clearing relationship has already entered full production.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 51Trend 10
Vietnam to Fine Retail Crypto Traders Using Offshore Exchanges
Most crypto enforcement globally has focused on exchanges rather than individual users. Vietnam’s decree extends liability directly to retail traders who continue using unlicensed platforms.
Under Decree 284/2026, which takes effect on September 1, individuals who trade through providers not licensed by the Ministry of Finance could face fines of up to VND 50 million, or about $1,900. Penalties can rise to VND 100 million for trading assets that are authorized only for foreign investors.
From Grey Market to Licensed-Only
Binance and Bybit, often operating in a legal grey area.
That framework is deliberately restrictive. Vietnam plans to license no more than five crypto exchanges during the first phase. Eligible operators must have charter capital of at least VND 10 trillion, or roughly $382 million.
Foreign investors will be capped at 49% ownership in local crypto businesses, and all trading and settlement must be conducted in Vietnamese dong.
The result is a controlled market, not an open licensing regime.
classified virtual and crypto assets under the Law on Digital Technology Industry, which took effect in January 2026, creating the legal basis for the new licensing regime.
What It Means for Brokers and Exchanges
The new rules make serving Vietnamese clients from offshore significantly more difficult. Licensed domestic operations become the primary route into the market under the pilot framework.
From September, Vietnamese retail traders who continue using unlicensed crypto exchanges could face direct financial penalties, raising the compliance stakes for both users and platforms.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 48Trend 10
Kraken Launches USD-Settled Crypto Options for Institutional Traders
Kraken has launched cash-settled, USD-denominated options on BTC and ETH with portfolio margin enabled by default, entering a segment of the crypto derivatives market where Coinbase and CME Group have also been expanding their positions.
Kraken's Launch Details
Eligible clients can now trade European-style options in XBT/USD and ETH/USD on Kraken Pro, with weekly, monthly, quarterly and semi-annual expiries available at launch through request-for-quote (RFQ).
A public order book is planned for a later phase, and European access will follow at an unspecified date. Kraken has not disclosed the eligibility criteria that determine which clients can access the product.
All contracts are linear and settled in US dollars, with premium, profit and loss denominated in USD rather than in the underlying asset. Portfolio margin applies to every eligible client by default, and offsetting positions reduce overall margin requirements.
Spot, futures and options sit in a single wallet, drawing on a multi-collateral pool that accepts more than 30 currencies.
"The existing options market in crypto has been built for a narrow slice of the trader base," said Alexia Theodorou, Director of Derivatives at Kraken. "Our offering broadens access through a straightforward, dollar-settled contract in the same account clients already use for spot and futures."
Where Kraken Sits against Coinbase and CME
Kraken enters a market where both Coinbase and CME already offer institutional options exposure through different market structures.
Coinbase closed its $2.9 billion acquisition of Deribit in August 2025, taking a direct stake in a venue that has long handled a large share of institutional crypto options volume.
CME Group offers CFTC-regulated, centrally cleared BTC and ETH options. In May 2026 the company extended trading to weekends, closing one of the remaining gaps between regulated derivatives markets and the continuous trading hours of crypto-native venues.
Kraken's structure differs from both: a single wallet spanning spot, futures and options, rather than a standalone options venue or a separate acquired platform.
The company frames the launch as an early phase rather than a finished product. The initial RFQ-only structure is intended to be followed by a public order book "to deepen price discovery as activity scales," alongside broader geographic access and additional assets over time.
Bottom Line
Kraken's options are live only through RFQ and only for an undisclosed set of eligible clients, entering a segment where Coinbase and CME already run established, higher-volume products.
Whether Kraken's unified-account structure draws institutional flow away from those venues, or simply adds a third option alongside them, will depend on how quickly it moves from RFQ to a public order book.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 51Trend 10
Citadel Securities Takes $400M Stake in Crypto.com as Digital Markets Strategy Accelerates
Citadel Securities has invested $400 million in Crypto.com, valuing the exchange at $20 billion. It is Crypto.com's first institutional funding round in its ten-year history.
The deal follows Citadel Securities' investment in Kraken, where it led an $800 million round at a similar $20 billion valuation. With stakes in two major retail-facing exchanges, Citadel now has direct exposure to platforms it does not control.
Moving past FTX-era caution
Citadel Securities spent years keeping its distance from major crypto exchanges, citing regulatory uncertainty and favouring more controlled venues such as EDX Markets.
Largest U.S. Retail Market Maker Citadel Securities Invests $400 Million in Crypto com at a $20 Billion ValuationCitadel Securities has invested $400 million in Crypto com at a $20 billion valuation, marking the crypto exchange’s first institutional funding round. Crypto com… pic.twitter.com/ZzmgqBZoLo
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 16, 2026
That stance is changing as the US regulatory backdrop turns more supportive of digital assets.
Citadel Securities is positioning itself for platforms that combine crypto, tokenised securities, derivatives and prediction markets.
As exchanges add more asset classes, they need deeper liquidity and tighter execution. These are the areas where Citadel Securities already operates at scale in traditional markets.
"The convergence of traditional financial markets and digital asset infrastructure is an exciting evolution," said Jim Esposito, President of Citadel Securities. "Crypto.com has built a foundation to support the continued institutionalisation of the digital asset market."
A New Liquidity Syndicate
Jane Street, DRW and Citadel Securities have each taken equity stakes in major digital asset venues. Crypto liquidity is concentrating around a small group of highly capitalised market makers.
For Crypto.com, the deal brings more than capital. It signals institutional backing at a time when the exchange is expanding into tokenised securities, derivatives and prediction markets.
CEO Kris Marszalek called the size of the opportunity "staggering" as crypto becomes part of broader financial infrastructure.
Execution, Convergence, and Who Controls the Stack
The investment strengthens ties between one of the world’s largest market makers and a rapidly expanding retail exchange.
If Citadel Securities increases its role as a liquidity provider on Crypto.com, execution quality and market depth could improve alongside the exchange’s broader product expansion.
The investment follows similar moves across the industry, where market makers, custodians and exchanges are becoming more closely connected as tokenised securities, crypto derivatives and prediction markets expand.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 51Trend 10
EXMO Pulls the Plug: Sanctioned Crypto Exchange Winds Down, Leaves Users Holding IOU Tokens
EXMO.com announced that it is beginning an orderly wind-down of the platform, citing UK financial sanctions against legal entities within the EXMO.com group. The exchange said it disputes the sanctions but is cooperating with authorities.
The designation traces back to May 26, 2026, when the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office added EXMO Exchange Limited to its Russia sanctions list alongside 17 other entities and individuals, including HTX (formerly Huobi), Bitpapa and Rapira Group.
The UK authorities framed the package as targeting the "A7 network," a group of crypto and banking infrastructure providers accused of helping fund Russia's war economy. EXMO was described in coverage of the action as an exchange popular among Russian-speaking traders.
Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs, which tracked the designations, noted that EXMO had said it exited the Russian market after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by selling off its Russia-facing business under a separately rebranded entity, Exmo.me, a move Finance Magnates reported on at the time as part of a wave of financial firms cutting ties with Russian, Belarusian and Kazakh clients.
TRM's on-chain analysis reportedly found that the two platforms continued sharing custodial wallet infrastructure after the split.
Per Thursday's notice, the sanctions have frozen a portion of user assets held by third-party custodians, exchanges and banking providers, and immediately halted new account registrations, new deposits and the opening of new trading positions. Existing positions can still be closed.
What Happens to the Money
EXMO says 29.4% of its total obligations to users cannot currently be returned. The company attributes this shortfall to two separate causes: unrecovered funds from a December 2020 hack of its hot wallets, and the fresh freezes imposed by custodial, banking and payment providers following the May 2026 sanctions.
The 2020 breach, which Finance Magnates covered at the time, saw roughly 5% of the exchange's total assets stolen by hackers, with EXMO publishing the destination wallet addresses and reporting the incident to UK police.
According to EXMO, the stolen funds were later traced by analytics firm Crystal moving through exchanges including Poloniex and Binance, but were never recovered. The company says it has spent the years since directing profits toward covering the resulting gap, though rising crypto prices have kept the value of the shortfall growing relative to its obligations.
To account for the combined 29.4% gap, EXMO has deducted that percentage proportionally from every client balance and issued an equivalent amount of a new token called USDRecover (USDRec) in its place. The token is described as a debt claim on any assets the company recovers, whether frozen funds are eventually released or stolen funds are traced. It cannot be traded or withdrawn.
Withdrawals and Account Verification
The platform will stay online for a limited period solely to let clients withdraw remaining funds. EXMO says withdrawal requests are being processed in the order received, with processing now taking several days due to disrupted operations. Users must be fully verified for withdrawals to go through, and some accounts may be asked to complete additional identity checks.
Asset conversion between currencies remains available to help users move into withdrawable assets, though EXMO warns that liquidity and pricing may not behave normally across all pairs. Withdrawal fees may also rise to offset the loss of transaction-processing services that providers have suspended because of the sanctions.
EXMO has encouraged users to initiate withdrawals as soon as possible, noting that further fees or restrictions could be introduced as the wind-down progresses.
This article was written by Arnab Shome at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 48Trend 10
Virtu Financial Joins BitGo Prime network as Institutional Crypto Liquidity Moves onto Regulated Rails
Virtu Financial has joined BitGo Prime's global liquidity network, bringing a major traditional market maker into BitGo's institutional digital asset trading stack.
The companies announced the partnership in a joint press release on July 15, 2026.
Separating Custody From Execution
The partnership also splits two functions that are typically bundled on centralised crypto exchanges: custody and execution. BitGo's custody and settlement infrastructure now pairs with Virtu's liquidity provision.
Under the arrangement, BitGo provides qualified custody and settlement; Virtu provides liquidity and pricing. Assets can remain in custody while execution routes through a separate liquidity network.
Scotte Moegling, head of business development for digital assets at Virtu, said the partnership lets the firm offer institutional clients "the competitive pricing they have come to expect across other asset classes." The comment was included in the July 15 release.
Virtu Financial Ireland holds MiCA authorisation. The licence gives it passporting rights to provide liquidity and trading services across the EU's 27 member states; it was publicly disclosed on June 2, 2026. BitGo Europe has held a MiCAR licence from BaFin since May 2025, covering custody and settlement.
Other Banks are Building Similar Infrastructure
Standard Chartered is separately planning to launch a crypto prime brokerage. The service would be housed within its venture unit SC Ventures, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg.
While the discussions are at an early stage, and a launch date has not been set, the bank has already backed crypto custodian Zodia Custody and trading platform Zodia Markets. In July, it became the first global systemically important bank to offer spot crypto trading to institutional clients.
The BitGo-Virtu partnership points to the same pattern: custody and execution infrastructure for institutional crypto is increasingly being built by firms with existing regulatory standing in traditional markets, not by crypto-native platforms alone.
Virtu disclosed preliminary second-quarter results alongside the July 15 announcement: expected net income of $285 million and adjusted net trading income of $718 million, equivalent to roughly $11.6 million per trading day.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 52Trend 10
Binance Calls Its Multi-Asset Strategy a Financial “Super App”
Binance has for the first time described its expansion beyond crypto as a plan to build a “multi-asset financial super app,” outlining a strategy that combines traditional brokerage, stablecoin payments and tokenised securities inside a single platform.
was announced previously, the company has now provided new details on how it intends to connect conventional brokerage with tokenised assets and on-chain finance.
Binance "Super App" Strategy: Expanding Beyond Trading into Payments and Financial ServicesShunyet Jan, Head of Spot Trading and Derivatives at Binance, told CoinDesk that the exchange is seeking to transform into a "super app" integrating payments and a broader range of… pic.twitter.com/BMOWMtsH4r
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 15, 2026
Stocks Today, Tokenisation Next
The service includes zero-commission trading, fractional shares from $5, fully paid securities lending and funding through USDC, USDT, USD1 and BNB. Sale proceeds are settled in USDC.
Yi He, co-founder and co-CEO of Binance. “To do that, we need to make it simpler for users to access opportunities across asset classes, diversify their portfolios, and move more easily between traditional investing and on-chain finance. That is what a multi-asset financial super app should help people do.”
The Two-Layer Equity Model
tokenised equity offering.
The company said bStocks will be issued by BTECH Holdings, a special purpose vehicle registered in Abu Dhabi Global Market, subject to regulatory approval.
Unlike the brokerage product, bStocks will trade directly on Binance Exchange and represent certificates backed one-to-one by underlying US equities and ETFs.
Rather than replacing conventional brokerage with tokenisation, Binance is building both products in parallel. That gives users access to regulated stock ownership today while expanding the platform toward tokenised securities as the regulatory framework develops.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 55Trend 10
Revolut Moves Closer to UAE Crypto Launch with VARA In-Principle Approval
Revolut has received
in-principle approval from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority to provide virtual asset services in the United Arab Emirates, expanding its
regulatory presence in the country.
The approval comes as Dubai continues to
expand its regulated digital asset market. Last year, the Securities
and Commodities Authority and VARA aligned their licensing frameworks,
allowing Dubai-issued crypto licences to operate more broadly across the UAE
after meeting compliance requirements.
Finance Magnates has also reported on
several firms, including
MultiBank and CoinMENA,
securing VARA authorisations as they expanded their presence in the
emirate.
Revolut Nears UAE Crypto Services Launch
The approval covers
broker-dealer, management and investment, and exchange services. It remains
subject to final regulatory approvals before the company can begin offering the
services.
According to Revolut,
the planned offering will be available through its retail app and its
standalone exchange, Revolut X. Eligible customers in the UAE would be able to
buy, sell, and hold digital assets within the country's regulated framework
once the required approvals are obtained.
The development
follows another regulatory authorisation for the company earlier this year, when it
received approval from the Central Bank of the UAE to conduct payments
activities. Revolut said the two approvals support its plan to build a locally
regulated financial ecosystem in the country.
Revolut receives Vara approval to offer crypto services in the UAE https://t.co/1oO5Yn9ULy
— The National (@TheNationalNews) July 15, 2026
Revolut Advances Regulated Digital Asset
Expansion
Joseph Khair, Head of
Revolut Digital Assets FZE in the UAE, said the country continues to show
"global leadership" in developing a regulatory framework for virtual
assets. He added that the approval "lays the foundation" for Revolut to
introduce its digital asset services in a regulated environment and supports
VARA's objective of building a "safe, transparent, and
innovation-driven" virtual asset ecosystem.
Revolut said it
currently serves more than 75 million customers globally, including over 16
million crypto customers. The company already offers crypto trading services in
the UK and the European Economic Area and plans to expand those services to the
UAE after securing the necessary final approvals.
This article was written by Tareq Sikder at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 55Trend 10
US Banks Target CLARITY Act Stablecoin Rewards in Fight Over Deposit Flight
A coalition of 78 banking groups, led by the American Bankers Association, is urging lawmakers to tighten the CLARITY Act by restricting how payment stablecoin issuers can reward users.
The proposals focus on limiting mechanisms that banks argue could make payment stablecoins function more like deposit products.
Just released - ABA, @ICBA join state associations in urging Senate to strengthen stablecoin yield provisions in Clarity Act: https://t.co/t9fYw7RqAL
— American Bankers Association (@ABABankers) July 13, 2026
Closing the Yield Loophole
CLARITY Act prohibits returns paid “solely” for holding stablecoins. Banking groups argue that this wording leaves room for issuers and platforms to structure rewards that differ legally but produce a similar economic outcome.
The groups also propose replacing the current “economically or functionally equivalent” test with a stricter “substantially similar” standard.
stablecoin products offering passive returns begin to compete directly with deposit accounts.
The Deposit Flight Debate
“We remain concerned that ambiguities within the bill could encourage stablecoin arrangements to effectively function as substitutes for deposits,” the groups wrote.
Circle or Paxos to offer yield-like rewards that compete with offshore crypto platforms..
stablecoins as payment and settlement infrastructure, with revenue increasingly tied to payments, transfers, integrations and reserve management rather than user-facing rewards.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 55Trend 10
Blockchain.com Taps Polymarket to Capture Event-Trading Demand Inside Its Brokerage App
Blockchain.com has partnered with Polymarket, bringing prediction market trading directly into its brokerage app.
The integration allows eligible Blockchain.com users to trade on real-world outcomes without moving funds to a separate prediction platform.
For the company’s 43 million verified users, event contracts become available alongside the digital assets they already hold and manage.
Capturing World Cup Momentum
The partnership coincides with a sharp rise in event-based trading volumes. According to the announcement, Polymarket has generated more than $4.2 billion in volume across global football matches during the current tournament cycle, with total football-related volume exceeding $5 billion over the past year.
Major sporting events have become the largest trading periods for prediction markets. By integrating Polymarket directly into its brokerage app, Blockchain.com allows users to participate without transferring funds to a separate platform.
“Partnering with Polymarket allows us to instantly expand our feature set into the fastest-growing sector of crypto at the exact moment global interest is hitting its peak,” said Peter Smith, CEO of Blockchain.com.
Keeping Trading Inside the Platform
The integration places prediction markets alongside crypto trading inside the same account.
Rather than opening a separate prediction market account, eligible users can access event contracts through an environment where they already buy, sell and hold digital assets.
For Polymarket, the partnership provides access to Blockchain.com’s existing customer base.
“Through this partnership, eligible Blockchain.com users can access the world’s largest information market inside the platform where they already manage digital assets,” said Shayne Coplan, Founder and CEO of Polymarket.
What Brokers Should Take From It
The partnership continues a pattern already visible across the industry. Coinbase, Robinhood and other platforms have also been integrating prediction markets into broader trading environments rather than offering them through standalone products.
For brokers, the account that already holds client assets is becoming an increasingly important distribution point for new trading products.
Prediction markets can now be offered alongside crypto trading without requiring users to move funds elsewhere.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 47Trend 10
Crypto Exchanges Close the Gap to Wall Street as MEXC Logs 7.1 Billion in SpaceX Futures
Crypto
exchange MEXC said today (Tuesday) that perpetual futures tied to SpaceX shares
drew more than 7.1 billion USDT in trading volume in the weeks after the rocket
company listed on June 12. The figure comes from the exchange's own
second-quarter report and has not been independently audited.
Users could
subscribe to SpaceX before it went public, trade futures on it afterward, hold
a tokenized version, and buy the actual share, without ever leaving the
platform.
MEXC ran
two SPACEX(PRE) subscription rounds while the company was still private,
collecting over 173 million USDT from more than 74,000 entries, the report
said.
SpaceX Becomes the Test
Case for the Full Equity Stack
One name
went from private to publicly traded inside a single quarter, and MEXC sold a
product at every stage of the journey.
RealStocks,
which went live June 1, supplied the last piece. The service routes orders for actual
US shares and ETFs through a licensed securities broker partner, giving buyers dividends rather
than price exposure alone. The exchange has still not named the broker,
disclosed custody arrangements, or explained how the USDT-to-dollar conversion
is priced.
More than
120,000 users signed up in the first month and 52% of them funded an account,
according to the company. By June 18, it had settled dividends on 34 stocks and
ETFs.
Stock
futures carried much of the equity flow. Micron's June earnings lifted MU
futures volume on the platform by roughly 142% in a single day, MEXC said, with
activity spilling into SanDisk, SK hynix and a DRAM ETF.
"Q2
put real numbers behind the word gateway," said Vugar Usi, who took over
as chief executive during the quarter.
Binance, Kraken and
Coinbase Are Building the Same Thing
Binance
opened access to roughly 7,000 US stocks on June 1, the same day RealStocks launched. Orders are arranged through
broker-dealer Nest Trading, with Alpaca handling custody, dividends and
corporate actions, and fractional purchases start at $5, funded in USDC, USDT
or BNB.
Kraken went
the tokenized route instead. Its xStocks brand passed $25 billion
in cumulative transaction volume in under eight months, listed on Deutsche Börse's 360X venue, and now
accounts for eight of the eleven largest tokenized equities. Coinbase has
described its own version of the plan as an "Everything Exchange"
covering crypto, stocks, derivatives and event contracts.
Prediction
markets are the other shared front. MEXC opened a zero-fee event
contract platform in March and added multi-outcome Combo positions on June 9. Average daily volume
there rose more than 6,700% between early and late June, the company said, off
a starting base it did not disclose.
Traffic Runs Both Ways as
Brokers Copy the Perpetual
The
borrowing is not one-directional. On Monday, Pepperstone said it would extend its
perpetual CFD range beyond SpaceX into metals, stock indices and energy, with gold, silver, Nasdaq, S&P
500, WTI and Brent versions listed as planned.
The perpetual, a contract with no expiry that uses periodic
funding payments to stay near the underlying, began life in crypto and is now
being fitted onto shares and commodities inside a regulated CFD wrapper.
"We
believe perpetual markets will become a standard feature of modern
finance," Pepperstone group chief executive Tamas Szabo said. European
regulators have already told firms that perpetual futures fall under EU CFD
rules, which drags the format inside the same retail leverage caps that MEXC's
offshore version sits outside.
The Refund the Report Does
Not Mention
MEXC's
Launchpad section says SPACEX(PRE) traded 12% above its subscription price at
listing and reached a 38% peak return. It says nothing about refunds.
On June 12,
MEXC cancelled tokenized SpaceX
allocations and returned money to subscribers, along with Binance, Bybit and Bitget Wallet,
after xStocks failed to source the underlying shares. All four had been
reselling access to allocations that Kraken's tokenization arm promised to
procure, and when that single supplier came up empty, so did everyone hanging
off it.
Demand was
never the constraint. Binance's campaign drew more than $557 million in USDC
before it was pulled, and MEXC's first round ran 15.5 times oversubscribed. The
shares just never showed up.
US Retail Stays Outside
the Perimeter
None of
this touches American investors. Tokenized equity products are closed
to US persons, and
Kraken's SpaceX token also excluded users in the UK, Canada and Australia.
Europe is
narrowing as well. MEXC entered July without a MiCA
license and without
any public update on its application, and its published list of restricted
jurisdictions, last revised in May, does not include EU member states. Hong
Kong's securities regulator put the exchange on its warning list
over unlicensed activity in 2024.
MEXC put
its June reserve ratio at 156.5% across major assets, with bitcoin backed at
269%, and said its futures insurance fund hit $753 million in July. Both
numbers are the exchange's own, and neither has been verified by an outside
auditor.
This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 47Trend 10
Blockmaze Receives Guinness World Records Title for over 40 Regulatory Licences at Launch
Blockmaze has received
a Guinness World Records title for "Most Financial Regulatory Licences at
a Blockchain Ecosystem Launch."
The award was
presented to the Blockmaze Foundation during a ceremony attended by UAE
Minister of State for Foreign Trade Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Guinness World
Records officials, representatives of Finvasia Group and the Blockmaze
Foundation, as well as industry participants.
Al Zeyoudi said the
achievement would support the UAE's position as a hub for blockchain,
tokenisation and Web3 technologies.
Blockmaze Highlights 40 Regulatory
Authorisations at Launch
According to Blockmaze, the record
recognises the number of financial regulatory licences and registrations held
across its ecosystem at launch. The company said the total exceeded 40.
Tajinder Virk,
Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Blockmaze, said the company had
brought together "more than 40 regulatory authorisations and
registrations" across its ecosystem.
Virk said tokenisation
alone was not sufficient, adding that "the real breakthrough comes"
when a token represents a legally
recognised real-world asset and can operate across regulated markets. He
said this requires regulatory, financial and compliance infrastructure.
He added "every
token should represent something real," with verifiable ownership and
governance.
Today is the day 🏆Blockmaze is officially receiving a Guinness World Record for having the most financial regulatory licences held by a blockchain ecosystem at launch.We built this from the ground up. And today the world's most recognized record authority is putting a stamp… pic.twitter.com/q0oh3raPvq
— Blockmaze (@BlockmazeRWA) July 13, 2026
Blockmaze Combines Licensing, Custody
and Compliance
Blockmaze said its
platform combines licensing, compliance, custody, payments and market
infrastructure to support the issuance, management and distribution of
tokenised assets across regulated jurisdictions.
Puneet Mangla,
Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Blockmaze, said the record reflected
the company's work to build a regulated blockchain ecosystem. He added that
future tokenised finance would depend on "trust, institutional-grade
infrastructure and global compliance."
Blockmaze provides
infrastructure for tokenised financial products, including stocks, contracts
for difference, gold and real estate, through services covering issuance,
custody, liquidity, payments and compliance.
Mbali Nkosi, Official
Adjudicator at Guinness World Records, said the title recognises "the
largest number of approved financial licences held by a blockchain ecosystem at
the time of its launch."
Nkosi said Guinness
World Records reviewed the available evidence and found that Blockmaze held
"the highest number of qualifying regulator-issued financial
licences" for a blockchain ecosystem at launch.
This article was written by Tareq Sikder at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 55Trend 10
Europe's Post-MiCA Reshuffle: Two Data Points, One Confused Market
Roughly 80% of the more than 1,200 firms previously registered under national crypto rules failed to secure a Crypto-Asset Service Provider licence before the MiCA transitional window closed on July 1, 2026.
Two weeks later, the first post-MiCA data is beginning to emerge. It offers an early picture of where users may be moving, and how little many of them know about the regulatory changes.
Volume is Moving Toward Licensed Platforms, OKX Says
OKX reported a 158% increase in EU app downloads in the 12 days following June 24, when Binance withdrew its MiCA licence application in Greece and confirmed it would stop serving EU clients without authorisation from July 1.
The growth was more than double the 70% average OKX said it tracked across ten MiCA-licensed exchanges over the same period, citing Sensor Tower data. Inflows from Binance users grew by more than 830% compared with the preceding 12 days, according to the exchange.
OKX has held a full MiCA licence since January 2025.
The figures come from OKX and describe activity on its own platform. No independent, market-wide breakdown of post-MiCA user flows is yet available.
Most Users Don't Know Their Exchange's Status
A Paybis survey of more than 850 European crypto users, published on July 13, found that 68.6% do not know whether their current exchange is MiCA-compliant.
Users ranked fees as the top factor in choosing a new platform (31.8%), ahead of Trustpilot and Google reviews (26.9%), personal recommendations (21.6%) and sign-up bonuses (19.7%).
The survey was conducted by Paybis, a MiCA-licensed exchange.
What the Two Data Points Suggest Together
Read on their own, neither figure describes the market. Read together, one exchange reports inflows while most surveyed users say they don't know whether their own platform is still allowed to serve them. This combination says more about confusion than about deliberate migration.
A review of aggregate exchange balances on Arkham Intelligence shows OKX's and Binance's holdings moving in the same direction, up and down, over the same two-week windows, rather than diverging as funds would if they were flowing from one platform to the other.
That pattern looks more consistent with market-wide price swings than with a one-directional shift in user funds.
The balances aren't broken down by region, so the check can't confirm or rule out an EEA-specific flow, but it does not support the scale of migration OKX describes.
Whether the current reshuffle settles around a handful of licensed exchanges, or scatters across self-custody and exit-only wind-downs, will become clearer as ESMA's CASP register is updated and more of the roughly 1,200 previously registered firms receive licensing decisions in the coming weeks.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 58Trend 20
SBI Holdings Taps Solana to Build Japan’s Institutional On-Chain Finance Market
SBI Holdings has entered into a strategic partnership with the Solana Foundation to build an on-chain financial market for real-world assets, stablecoins and institutional settlement.
The entity is expected to be renamed SBI Solana Global following standard corporate procedures.
TradFi Signal: SBI Holdings & @SolanaFndn just announced a Japan-led onchain financial market, alongside SMFG (a G-SIB).▫️What stands out: Solana Foundation isn't just "chosen" here, they're taking a direct equity stake in SBI Solana Global. That level of commitment is rare in… pic.twitter.com/YxRGbKmaLT
— Solana Stream (@solana_stream) July 13, 2026
From Pilots to On-Chain Market Infrastructure
The second is real-world asset tokenisation. The partners plan to bring corporate bonds, commercial paper, real estate and investment funds onto Solana infrastructure.
The fourth is payments infrastructure for AI agents. No launch timeline has been disclosed.
Building on Japan’s Regulatory Framework
SBI said the venture is intended to support Japan’s position as a regional hub for on-chain finance by expanding the market for Japan-originated digital assets.
tokenised securities governed by existing disclosure rules—with Solana’s public blockchain infrastructure.
Several important details remain undisclosed. SBI has not revealed the size of Solana Foundation’s equity stake, launch timelines for individual products or revenue expectations for the venture.
yen stablecoin with Startale, RLUSD distribution in Japan through Ripple and a non-binding letter of intent to acquire Bitbank.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 48Trend 10
Webull EU Secures MiCA Authorisation as EU Targets Post-Regulation Gaps
Webull EU has secured approval under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, granted by the Dutch regulator.
This authorisation represents one of the first major approvals following the conclusion of the grandfathering period on 1 July, which allowed firms previously holding national Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) registrations to transition into the harmonised EU framework.
The firm intends to leverage the licence to launch crypto operations and custody services in late 2026.
Andries van Luijk, CEO of Webull Securities (Europe), characterised the move as a significant milestone in the group’s continental ambitions, stating that the broker remains committed to providing "secure and compliant access to digital assets" under the EU’s comprehensive rulebook.
The Webull Group, which already operates a zero-commission model in the US and a retail brokerage in the UK, established its EU foothold in 2025 via the Netherlands. The expansion comes amidst robust top-line growth; in the first quarter of 2026, the Group reported revenues of US$159.9 million, a 36% year-on-year increase.
While rising client assets and trading volumes supported this growth, the firm reported a net loss for the period, attributed to heightened expansionary spending.
The MiCA Landscape and Regulatory Friction
The implementation of MiCA has significantly consolidated the European digital asset market, with the licensed population now hovering around 200 firms.
The transition has proven difficult for some industry giants; notably, Binance missed the grandfathering deadline after failing to secure a licence from the Greek regulator.
Brussels has already launched a formal review to gather feedback from industry participants on the framework's functioning.
A point of contention is the regulatory bifurcation regarding stablecoins. Under MiCA, stablecoins are classified as e-money, requiring firms to secure an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence under the direct purview of central banks.
Looking Beyond the Current Rulebook
The European Parliament is also urging the European Commission to address emerging gaps not fully covered by the initial MiCA text.
The key areas are Decentralised Finance (DeFi) and staking. DeFi lending and borrowing have raised alarms regarding "shadow-banking" risks, while staking and yield products are being scrutinised for disclosure and consumer protection failings.
Furthermore, the legal status of NFTs and tokenised financial assets remains a point of friction, sitting close to the traditional securities perimeter.
Parliament has warned that if individual member states develop bespoke rules for DeFi or NFTs, the single market framework MiCA was designed to establish could be undermined by renewed fragmentation.
This article was written by Adonis Adoni at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 61Trend 30
Circle Becomes “First Stablecoin Issuer” to Win US National Trust Bank Approval
Circle has received
final approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to
establish a national trust bank, allowing the USDC issuer to expand its
regulated digital asset custody operations in the United States.
The company announced today
(Friday) that the new institution will operate as Circle National Trust,
formally established as First National Digital Currency Bank. The approval
follows Circle's
application for a national trust charter in June 2025.
The decision also
marks the first approval among a recent wave of applications from major
stablecoin issuers seeking federal trust bank charters. Ripple applied to
establish Ripple National Trust Bank in July last year as part of its plans to
support its RLUSD stablecoin and custody services.
Paxos
followed with its own application in August, seeking to convert its
existing New York trust charter into a national OCC charter. Circle is the
first of the three companies to receive final approval from the regulator.
Trust Bank Begins with Affiliate Custody
Services
Commenting on the
approval, Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Allaire described the decision as
"a defining step" in bringing blockchain technology and digital
assets "into the core of the US financial system."
According to the
approved business plan, Circle National Trust will initially provide fiduciary
digital asset custody services for Circle and its affiliated companies. The
bank could later expand those services to a limited group of institutional
clients, including banks and other financial institutions, if demand develops.
Circle has received final OCC approval to establish First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., a national trust bank operating as Circle National Trust.A major U.S. regulatory milestone that strengthens USDC infrastructure through federally regulated custody, with reserve… pic.twitter.com/GtThvFV5aW
— Circle (@circle) July 10, 2026
Circle Eyes Federal Oversight for
Reserves
The trust bank
structure could also allow Circle to manage the reserves backing its USDC
stablecoin under federal oversight in the future.
The approval further
expands Circle's regulatory footprint. The company said it was the first
business to receive a BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial
Services in 2015 and the first global stablecoin issuer to comply with the
European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets framework in 2024.
Circle has also
secured regulatory approvals in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Bermuda, Canada
and Abu Dhabi.
This article was written by Tareq Sikder at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 52Trend 10
Europe's Crypto Bonus Wars Are Back but CFD Brokers Can't Join Them
Within ten days in late June, four licensed crypto exchanges rolled out overlapping customer acquisition campaigns targeting users in the European Economic Area. Transfer bonuses, cashback offers and a €1 million prize draw all arrived ahead of MiCA’s 1 July transitional deadline.
On 1 July, national grandfathering for exchanges without a Crypto-Asset Service Provider licence ended, cutting off unauthorised platforms, including Binance, from onboarding in the EEA. The licensed platforms are competing for those users with money.
Four Campaigns, One Deadline
Kraken opened first. From 19 June to 31 July, every euro deposited by enrolled EEA users earns one entry into a €1 million prize draw, open to both new and existing customers across Kraken Pro and the main app.
€1,000,000. One prize draw. The more you move, the more you're in.Switch to Kraken Europe's MiCA and MiFID licensed exchange and every euro you deposit earns an entry. Switch now ⤵️https://t.co/W0VgPZ9X2c*T&Cs apply pic.twitter.com/WOm0kVdGpe
— Kraken (@krakenfx) June 19, 2026
Bybit EU launched its "Move Your Funds, Get Rewarded" campaign the same day, running to 31 July for new users in the EEA excluding Malta. The top tier pays 3% annualised cashback on cumulative crypto deposits of $50,000 or more, paid monthly in USDC over 12 months and conditional on minimum spot trading volume.
Move your funds. Get rewarded.Join us and enjoy exclusive benefits designed for Europe's next chapter.Licensed under MiCAR in Austria, Bybit EU serves users across the EEA, with the exception of Malta, through a dedicated European platform.
— Bybit EU (@BybitEU) June 22, 2026
OKX followed on 29 June with the largest headline number: an 8% bonus on net deposits, capped at €20,000 and paid in USDC over 52 weeks, for EEA residents who opt in and deposit at least €10 before 31 July.
New accounts qualify for an additional welcome bonus of up to €400 and a 30-day VIP upgrade tied to a derivatives appropriateness assessment.
Every day, more of Europe chooses The New Money App.MiCA-authorised, and millions are already switching. Move to OKX today and get an 8% deposit bonus. pic.twitter.com/k7LPayFUQF
— OKX (@okx) July 9, 2026
Coinbase is promoting a 5% bonus on crypto transferred to the platform through its official X account, with eligibility tied to a paid Coinbase One subscription. The offer covers users in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Poland, Sweden and the UK, and full terms sit behind a login wall.
Move your crypto to Coinbase → get a 5% bonus on top.Fast, and in full.All while accessing our extensive products and liquidity on a MiCA-compliant exchange.Available now for users from across the EU who sign up for Coinbase One. pic.twitter.com/EgtwGGOgGp
— Coinbase 🛡️ (@coinbase) July 6, 2026
The mechanics differ, but each campaign encourages users to move assets onto licensed platforms, with several rewarding customers over periods of up to a year.
The Incentives CFD Brokers Lost in 2018
ESMA's 2018 product intervention measures for CFDs, introduced alongside leverage caps and negative balance protection, prohibited providers from offering retail clients monetary and non-monetary benefits for opening accounts, funding them or trading.
The regulator's list covered account opening bonuses, trading bonuses, volume-based rebates and gifts, with an exception only for information and research tools.
ESMA's stated reasoning was that such incentives distract retail clients from the risks of the product and encourage more active trading. The temporary measures became permanent in 2019, when national regulators across the EU adopted them into domestic product intervention rules, where they remain in force.
Meanwhile MiCA obliges CASPs to act honestly, fairly and professionally in the best interests of their clients, and requires marketing communications to be fair, clear and not misleading. The regulation contains no provision restricting deposit bonuses, transfer rewards, cashback programmes or prize draws for retail clients.
The Bottom Line
Within weeks of the transitional deadline, competition among licensed exchanges has shifted from securing authorisation to acquiring customers, using tools that disappeared from the European CFD market seven years ago. The framework that permits them entered formal review in May.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 53Trend 10
Ten Days to the GENIUS Act Deadline: What the Draft Rules Already Reveal
Ten days remain before the statutory deadline for federal agencies to publish the implementing rules under the GENIUS Act. As of this week, the rulebook is still missing, leaving stablecoin issuers to prepare against proposed texts rather than binding regulations.
Seven federal agencies - the OCC, FDIC, Federal Reserve, NCUA, Treasury, FinCEN and OFAC - are required to complete the stablecoin rulemaking by July 18, one year after the law was signed.
Between December 2025 and June 2026, they released proposals covering capital, reserves, liquidity, redemption, financial crime compliance and credit union-affiliated issuers.
The drafts do not settle the details, but they show the direction of the first federal stablecoin regime: higher capital and liquidity standards, tighter reserve rules, and bank-style compliance obligations for issuers.
The Rulebook is Still in Draft, but the Outline Is Already Clear
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) published the most detailed proposal in February, setting out how federally supervised stablecoin issuers would be licensed, examined and required to manage reserves and redemptions.
In the following months, other agencies filled in separate parts of the framework: bank-affiliated issuers, state regime certification, anti-money laundering controls and sanctions compliance. Comments on the main proposals closed by June 9.
The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), which oversees credit unions, came later than the other agencies: its proposal for credit union-affiliated stablecoin issuers was published in May, and the comment period closes on July 17, one day before the deadline.
The Federal Reserve has not published a standalone proposal for stablecoin issuers under its supervision, joining only the interagency customer identification proposal released in June. That leaves subsidiaries of state member banks without the same agency-specific roadmap that OCC- and FDIC-supervised issuers already have.
That creates an unusual situation: parts of the statutory framework could become effective before the Federal Reserve finalises its customer-identification rules.
Agencies miss statutory rulemaking deadlines regularly and face no formal penalty for doing so. The practical consequence is timing, covered below.
What Issuers Will Have to Comply With
The core of the regime sits in the statute itself and will not move. Every permitted issuer must hold 1:1 reserves in eligible assets. Rehypothecation of those reserves is prohibited for most purposes.
Issuers must also publish monthly reserve reports covering reserve composition, outstanding supply and tenor. Those reports must be certified by the CEO and CFO and accompanied by a third-party attestation from a registered accounting firm.
The statute also fixes the financial crime baseline: issuers become financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act, the same legal status as a bank.
The FinCEN and OFAC proposal spells out what that requires in practice - board-approved AML programmes, suspicious activity reporting, sanctions screening and the ability to block or freeze tokens when required by law. FinCEN estimates the rules would initially apply to around 50 issuers.
The proposed rules add the prudential detail. The OCC has proposed a $5 million minimum capital floor for new federal issuers, with additional risk-based requirements for larger or more complex firms.
The proposal also narrows what can count as a reserve asset. Eligible assets would include cash, balances at Federal Reserve Banks, insured demand deposits, Treasury bills, and overnight Treasury repos.
Liquidity and redemption would be subject to separate tests. Under the OCC's quantitative option, at least 10 percent of outstanding stablecoins would need to be redeemable on the same business day, and at least 30 percent within five business days.
Redemption itself would be at par within two business days of a valid request.
Under stress conditions, the deadline changes. If redemption requests exceed 10 percent of outstanding issuance over a rolling 24-hour period, issuers would have up to seven calendar days to complete redemptions, while notifying the regulator immediately.
The OCC alone sought feedback on more than 200 issues, highlighting how many design choices remain open even at this late stage of the rulemaking. That leaves room for changes in the final text.
The Compliance Clock Starts Later Than July 18
July 18 is a deadline for regulators, not for issuers. Even if agencies publish the rules on time, most obligations do not take effect immediately.
Under the GENIUS Act, the framework becomes effective 120 days after the primary federal regulators publish their final rules, or on January 18, 2027, whichever comes first.
In practice, that means issuers are unlikely to face the new regime before mid-November, even if the rulemaking is completed by the statutory deadline.
Some requirements follow their own timetable. Once FinCEN and OFAC publish their final AML rule, issuers will have 12 months to implement the required compliance programmes.
The longest transition applies to the firms that distribute rather than issue stablecoins.
From July 18, 2028, exchanges, brokers and custodians will no longer be allowed to offer stablecoins in the US unless they are issued by a permitted domestic issuer or a registered foreign issuer.
Not Every Issuer Starts From the Same Position
Circle and Paxos are the furthest along the federal path. Both received conditional national trust bank charters from the OCC in December 2025, placing them inside the federal perimeter before the rules were even proposed.
Ripple has applied for a national trust bank charter and holds RLUSD reserves in Treasuries and money market funds with BNY Mellon as custodian, but its application has yet to be approved.
Tether faces a different set of questions. USDT's reserves include asset classes that fall outside the proposed list of eligible reserve assets.
Its foreign-issuer path is also uncertain: Treasury would need to determine that the issuer's home regulatory framework is comparable to the US model.
No jurisdiction has yet received that determination.
In January 2026, Tether launched USA₮, a separate US-market token issued through Anchorage Digital Bank.
State-chartered issuers face another unresolved issue.
Treasury's framework for determining whether state regimes are "substantially similar" to the federal regime remains in proposed form, and no state has yet been certified.
The Issuer's Licence Becomes the Broker's Due Diligence
For brokers and payment firms, the rules matter even if they never issue a stablecoin themselves. Once the Act is in effect, using a stablecoin in the US will increasingly depend on the regulatory status of the issuer behind it.
After the 2028 cutoff, offering a non-permitted token becomes the service provider's regulatory exposure, not only the issuer's.
That changes the due diligence question.
A broker accepting stablecoins for client funding or settlement will need to look beyond the token itself and check who issued it, under which licence, and what reserve disclosures stand behind it.
The proposed framework would give firms more standardised information to rely on, including par redemption within two business days, monthly certified reserve reports and a supervised AML programme.
That does not eliminate counterparty risk. Stablecoin holdings carry no FDIC deposit insurance, even when the issuer is bank-affiliated. The risk review moves instead to the issuer's charter status, reserve reports and compliance controls.
One issue remains unresolved on the service-provider side: whether exchanges can continue offering reward programmes on stablecoin balances without violating the Act's ban on issuer-paid yield.
Banking groups, including the American Bankers Association and the Bank Policy Institute, argue that exchange-funded rewards undermine the prohibition and accelerate deposit migration; crypto firms maintain that Congress deliberately limited the ban to issuers.
The dispute is playing out in Congress rather than the courts, through the yield provisions of the separate CLARITY Act.
What to Watch After July 18
The next phase will depend first on whether regulators meet the July 18 deadline at all.
If they do, the focus will immediately shift from the proposals to the final text: whether the OCC keeps its quantitative liquidity option, how reserve diversification is handled, and whether the Federal Reserve closes the gap for issuers under its supervision.
Timing will matter as much as substance. Once the primary federal regulators publish the final rules, the 120-day clock begins. That date will determine when issuers must move from preparing against draft proposals to operating under the first federal stablecoin regime.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
Composite 57Trend 10
EU Lawmakers Look Beyond MiCA, Targeting DeFi and Staking
Just days after the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation became fully applicable on July 1, the European Parliament called on the European Commission to identify gaps in the current crypto rulebook and assess whether further regulation is needed.
For brokers and institutional firms, it signals that areas currently outside MiCA are likely to receive greater regulatory attention.
DeFi and Staking Move Into Focus
MiCA created a framework for centralised crypto-asset service providers, but large parts of the on-chain market remained outside its scope. Parliament is now asking the European Commission to examine those areas more directly.
The areas under review fall into two broad groups. DeFi lending and borrowing raise questions about shadow-banking risks, while staking and yield products point to disclosure, risk-management and consumer-protection issues. NFTs and tokenised financial assets sit closer to the securities perimeter, depending on how they are structured.
The report titled Digital Assets – Challenges for the Competitiveness and Integrity of the EU Financial System calls for assessing whether those products should fall under existing securities and financial-market rules.
A key concern is fragmentation.
If individual EU member states develop separate approaches to DeFi, staking or NFTs, Parliament argues, the bloc risks undermining the single-market framework MiCA was designed to create.
A More Supportive Tone on Euro Stablecoins
stablecoins, describing regulated digital assets as part of Europe’s financial competitiveness strategy.
LATEST: ⚡ MiCA-compliant euro stablecoins grew 128% in market cap to $673.9M in the year before Europe’s MiCA transition period ended, according to Decta. pic.twitter.com/DHPQwoFNxS
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) July 7, 2026
Trading volumes increased by more than 43% over the same period.
A larger market for regulated euro stablecoins could strengthen on-chain settlement options for European banks, brokers and fintechs while reducing reliance on dollar-denominated stablecoins.
The report indicates which parts of the crypto market European lawmakers are most likely to examine next.
Firms that invested early in MiCA compliance could be better positioned if staking, lending and other on-chain products are eventually brought into a formal regulatory framework.
Brokers and fintechs should pay attention to whether MiCA-compliant euro stablecoins can become a practical settlement tool inside the EU framework.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
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bitFlyer USA expands to West Virginia, nears full US coverage
bitFlyer USA has launched trading services in West Virginia, bringing the Japanese-owned crypto exchange closer to full coverage of the US market.
The expansion takes bitFlyer’s availability to 49 US states and the District of Columbia. The company entered the US in 2018 with access to 40 states and has spent the past eight years working through the country’s state-by-state licensing regime.
The West Virginia launch follows the receipt of a local Money Transmitter License in February 2026. It is bitFlyer’s first major state addition since 2021, when the exchange secured approval in Connecticut.
Hawaii is now the only remaining state outside its US footprint.
A Compliance-First Global Strategy
The US expansion comes shortly after a regulatory milestone in Europe. On June 26, 2026, bitFlyer Europe became the first Japan-originated exchange to receive a Crypto-Asset Service Provider license under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation.
The license, granted by Luxembourg’s CSSF days before the July 1 MiCA deadline, allows bitFlyer to passport its services across all 27 EU member states. It also moves the company from the older VASP framework into the bloc’s harmonised crypto regime.
As offshore platforms adjust to MiCA’s stricter requirements, the exchange can present itself as a regulated operator in both the US and Europe.
Institutional Positioning
Geographic reach is not the only focus of the strategy. By building its business in high-standard jurisdictions, bitFlyer is trying to position itself as a cleaner institutional alternative to less regulated crypto venues.
“Our mission has always been to make digital asset trading accessible without compromising on security or compliance,” said Christopher Temme, COO of bitFlyer USA.
The company’s Lightning Exchange is aimed at professional and high-frequency traders that need API access, transparent order books and reliable market infrastructure.
Those features depend heavily on banking, custody and compliance relationships that are easier to maintain with a fully licensed operating model.
As crypto trading becomes more institutional, bitFlyer’s progress in West Virginia and Europe gives it a stronger cross-border regulatory story.
The company is not moving fast by offshore standards, but it is building the kind of footprint banks, brokers and professional traders can actually use.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
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Binance Re-Enters Philippines as Regulator Clears BlockShoals Sandbox
Binance is set to
enter the Philippine market through a regulatory sandbox after the country's
Securities and Exchange Commission granted final approval to BlockShoals
Technologies Inc. to begin testing crypto-related financial products and
services.
Binance's return
follows regulatory
action in the Philippines in 2024, when the Securities and Exchange
Commission said the exchange was operating without the required licenses and
requested that local authorities restrict access to its platform.
Binance Enters Philippines Through SEC
Sandbox
The development became
public after Binance Co-founder and Chief Customer Service Officer Yi He said
in a post on X that the exchange had officially entered the Philippine market.
An accompanying SEC document showed that BlockShoals had received final approval
to begin testing under the Commission's Strategic Regulatory Sandbox framework.
According to the SEC,
the approval was granted after BlockShoals completed all remaining regulatory
requirements. The company had previously received initial clearance for its
Stratbox application last year.
Under the approved
framework, BlockShoals will operate under a crypto-asset intermediary model.
The arrangement will allow users in the Philippines to access selected products
and services through its global crypto-asset service provider partner, Binance.
Binance officially enters the Philippines.币安正式进入菲律宾。 pic.twitter.com/TVd1k0qVQN
— Yi He (@heyibinance) July 2, 2026
Onboarding Follows BlockShoals Systems
Integration
The SEC said the first
phase of the project will involve a 90-day systems integration between
BlockShoals and its local virtual-asset service provider partner.
Once the integration
is completed, BlockShoals will move to the next stage of its approved testing
plan. This includes onboarding users through its global CASP partner, Binance,
while complying with the safeguards and regulatory oversight required by the
SEC.
The Stratbox framework
is the SEC's regulatory sandbox program, which allows companies to test new
financial products and services under the Commission's supervision before any
broader rollout.
This article was written by Tareq Sikder at www.financemagnates.com.
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MiCA Day One: We Tested How Europe's Unlicensed Exchanges Treat New Users
Europe's MiCA transition period ended on July 1, cutting off unlicensed crypto exchanges from serving new EU clients.
Finance Magnates tested what users with an EU IP address encounter when attempting to register on five platforms that remain without a CASP licence, and compared those sign-up experiences with each exchange's public messaging.
Binance: Restrictions Announced, Sign-Up Remains Accessible
Binance withdrew its MiCA licence application in Greece on June 24 and said it would stop onboarding new EU users and opening new positions from July 1. Existing users will retain withdrawal access.
CEO Richard Teng reiterated this on X, saying user assets remain safe and secure and that affected users would keep access to previously communicated options.
As MiCA-related changes take effect today in the EU, I want to personally reassure our affected users that we remain fully committed to supporting you through this transition with care, clarity, and responsibility.Your assets remain safe and secure on @binance. After 1 July,… pic.twitter.com/fyqdNYjGrA
— Richard Teng (@_RichardTeng) July 1, 2026
Loading Binance's site from an EU IP triggers a popup titled "European Regulatory Information", but the sign-up process itself is not immediately blocked. Instead, users are directed to contact customer support.
Whether registration ultimately succeeds beyond that point was not tested.
Changpeng Zhao offered his own account of the licence withdrawal, saying regulators had previously considered the application "fully compliant" and describing competition among EU jurisdictions to host Binance's licence. Those claims could not be independently verified.
MEXC: Reassurance, No Visible Change During Sign-Up
The initial registration experience reflected that message. Finance Magnates encountered no visible restrictions during sign-up, and MEXC's published list of restricted jurisdictions, last updated in May 2026, does not include EU member states.
MEXC's leadership had signalled EU compliance was a priority before the deadline. In April, newly appointed CEO Vugar Usi, formerly COO of Bitget, described MiCA authorisation as "a top strategic priority."
Dear MEXCer @SvilleVille We completely understand the anxiety surrounding these upcoming deadlines, and we want to assure you that your peace of mind is our absolute priority.To be fully transparent with you: MEXC has been continuously monitoring regulatory updates in the EU…
— MEXC (@MEXC) June 23, 2026
As of July 1, however, no public update on the licence application had been published beyond the support account's reply.
Bitget: Licence Pending, Registration Adds Friction
A quick update for our EU community on where Bitget EU stands in the MiCAR authorisation process:🔹 Bitget EU has submitted an application for authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCAR to the Austrian Financial Market Authority.🔹 Bitget EU's application is… https://t.co/SKampjmanw
— Gracy Chen @Bitget (@GracyBitget) June 17, 2026
During Finance Magnates' test, registering from a German IP triggered a "Restricted IP" popup specifically naming Germany. Users could proceed only after ticking a self-declaration confirming they were not German residents. Whether additional checks are applied later in the onboarding process was not tested.
BingX: The Strictest Sign-Up Flow
BingX has publicly disclosed its MiCA status. In a June 16 update, BingX EU said it had applied for CASP authorisation with Austria's FMA and that the application was at an advanced stage, although not yet approved.
ICYMI: Update on BingX EU's MiCAR Authorisation Process🔗 Full details: https://t.co/4GwPUOubn3
— BingX (@BingXOfficial) June 16, 2026
Among the exchanges tested, BingX presented the strictest registration flow. Finance Magnates was unable to proceed with registration from an EU IP, with no visible workaround offered during the initial sign-up process.
HTX and Bitfinex: No Public Statement, Registration Still Available
Finance Magnates was able to access the sign-up process on both platforms, and each exchange's published restricted-jurisdictions list continues to omit EU member states.
No Single Approach Emerged
Binance, Bitget and BingX each introduced friction during sign-up, in different forms and to different degrees. HTX and Bitfinex showed no visible change, consistent with having made no public statement at all. MEXC's experience also showed no visible change, but its published jurisdictions list has not been updated since May.
Methodology: Finance Magnates tested publicly accessible sign-up flows from EU-based IP addresses on July 1, 2026, without using existing customer accounts. The review covers only the initial registration experience and does not assess subsequent KYC procedures, account approval, or access to trading, deposits and withdrawals for existing or newly registered users.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
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Binance Faces £150M UK Lawsuit From 1,692 Retail Derivatives Traders
Nearly 1,700 British investors allege Binance sold leveraged derivatives it was not authorised to offer under UK law, in a claim filed as the exchange continues to navigate regulatory challenges across multiple jurisdictions.
Binance and co-founder Changpeng Zhao are facing a group legal claim filed at the UK High Court on Monday by 1,692 retail investors, who allege the exchange sold unauthorised derivative products to UK clients in 2019 and 2020.
The claimants, represented by KP Law, argue that Binance sold products that qualify as "specified investments" under the Financial Conduct Authority's rules, meaning the exchange required FCA authorisation or an exemption to offer them.
It had neither, according to the claim. Lawyers for the claimants say they are seeking up to £150 million.
What the Claim Says
The suit centres on leveraged derivatives that let retail traders amplify gains or losses. The claimants allege Binance promoted the products through online materials, social media posts, email communications and other marketing in breach of the Financial Services and Markets Act.
Hannah Sharp, partner at KP Law, said the claimants are "ordinary people, many of whom committed significant savings," and described some losses as running into "tens of thousands and in some cases millions of pounds."
One named claimant, Tomas Sutas, invested more than £100,000 in the products before losing the position.
As of Monday's filing, Binance had not yet acknowledged service of the claim.
In a statement to press, the exchange said:
"We do not comment on ongoing litigation. We will defend against these claims through the appropriate legal process in due course. Binance remains committed to its obligations to users and to operating in accordance with applicable law."
Regulatory Context
The FCA banned the sale of crypto derivatives to UK retail clients in January 2021, citing volatility and the difficulty retail investors face in valuing the products.
The activity covered by the claim predates that ban.
Binance has previously faced regulatory and criminal enforcement elsewhere. In 2023, the exchange pleaded guilty to US criminal charges related to money laundering and sanctions violations, agreeing to pay more than $4.3 billion in penalties.
Zhao resigned as CEO, pleaded guilty to a related charge and later served four months in prison before receiving a presidential pardon.
The lawsuit also follows Binance's recent decision to withdraw its MiCA licence application in Greece and begin winding down parts of its EU business while it pursues authorisation elsewhere in the bloc.
Separately, the FCA this week published its landmark rules for the UK's crypto industry, continuing the regulator's broader effort to formalise oversight of digital assets.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
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Kraken Plugs Institutional Liquidity into Europe’s Banking Rails via Trever Integration
Kraken has integrated Kraken Prime into Trever, giving European banks and brokers a way to execute and settle institutional crypto trades inside their existing operating environment.
The partnership expands Kraken’s institutional infrastructure strategy by moving its liquidity and custody services deeper into the back office of traditional finance. Banks can access crypto liquidity without rebuilding workflows around an exchange interface.
European banks and brokers using Trever can now access Kraken Prime — execution, qualified custody and settlement, all in one place.No new infrastructure. Just a direct connection into 90%+ of digital asset liquidity.https://t.co/V1EgDCYlsh
— Kraken Institutional (@KrakenInsto) June 30, 2026
Reducing Operational Drag
The Trever integration is designed to reduce the complexity. Banks using Trever can route execution across more than 20 global liquidity venues, settle into Kraken’s qualified custody and keep a single auditable record inside their existing system.
“Trever’s clients are some of Europe’s most established financial institutions,” said Gurpreet Oberoi, Head of Kraken Institutional. “By bringing Kraken Prime into their workflow, we’re giving them access to execution quality and qualified custody without the operational drag.”
The timing also reflects broader changes in the European market. As MiCA raises the bar for governance, custody, reporting and operational discipline, crypto firms are under pressure to integrate more easily into institutional operating environments.
Kraken has recently expanded its regulated infrastructure across several markets. Its parent company, Payward, secured a $200 million investment from Deutsche Börse, obtained a MiCA licence from the Central Bank of Ireland and added MiFID II derivatives coverage through its Cyprus-regulated broker.
Bitnomial for $550 million to expand its US derivatives business and Reap for $600 million to strengthen its global stablecoin infrastructure.
What This Means for Brokers
The Trever integration points to a practical shift in digital asset adoption. The market is moving away from the DIY phase, where institutions assembled trading, custody, compliance and reporting infrastructure from multiple providers.
By embedding Kraken Prime directly into Trever’s operating layer, the integration allows banks to access institutional crypto liquidity and custody without changing their existing operating environment.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
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The UK's FCA Eases Stablecoin Rules Following Industry Backlash
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has now performed a significant about-turn on its stablecoin proposals, halving its planned capital requirements from 2% to 1%.
This move follows a sustained period of industry backlash, with David Geale, the FCA lead for payments and digital finance, conceding that the original demands were likely too high for the current market.
Beyond the capital buffer reduction, the regulator has also softened its stance on redemption timelines and public disclosure obligations.
The rules are set to take effect in October 2027.
However, these regulations focus only on stablecoins pegged to the British pound, which represent a fraction of the global market. The Bank of England has mirrored this pragmatism, recently diluting its own unpopular proposals for systemic stablecoins.
Whether these adjustments suggest that the FCA is finally listening to market participants or trying to keep with the more crypto-friendly regime in the US is unclear.
Notably, the US rules drawn last year have avoided a rigid, one-size-fits-all capital requirement for stablecoin issuers.
The EU Remains Restrictive
The view from the EU, though, is far more heavy-handed and restrictive.
The Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation, which came into force toward the end of 2024, sets own-funds requirements for significant stablecoin issuers as high as 3%, a point that has already drawn opposition from major players.
Tether, the largest global issuer, has famously distanced itself from the MiCA framework entirely due to these stringent demands.
The requirement for issuers to be authorised as traditional banks or Electronic Money Institutions, which in most EU countries are regulated by Central Banks rather than regulators, adds another layer of complexity.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has been a vocal detractor of stablecoins, with President Lagarde going so far as to call them a direct threat to the financial stability of the Eurozone and the monetary sovereignty of the Euro.
The ECB is preparing to launch the digital euro, its own state-backed competitor to stablecoin.
While the EU has started an official review of MiCA, meaningful changes to stablecoin rules still look unlikely, given the ECB’s stance.
This article was written by Adonis Adoni at www.financemagnates.com.
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Two Days Before MiCA Transition Ends, FalconX Secures EU Crypto License
FalconX has received
authorization under the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation from
the Malta Financial Services Authority, allowing the institutional digital
asset prime broker to expand its regulated services across the European
Economic Area.
The approval comes ahead
of the July 1 expiry of the European Union's MiCA transition period. The
deadline marks the end of the grandfathering regime that allowed existing
crypto firms to continue operating while seeking authorization. Firms without a
MiCA licence must either transfer clients to an authorized provider or wind
down their activities.
Expands European Crypto Services Under
MiCA
According to FalconX,
the authorization allows it to provide trading, custody, and liquidity services
to institutional clients throughout the EEA under the EU's unified crypto
regulatory framework.
Maruska Buttigieg
Gili, Chief Compliance Officer,Europe at FalconX, said institutional clients
increasingly expect "trust, transparency, and well-defined rules" as
digital assets become more integrated into the financial system.
FalconX also pointed
to its regulatory presence, noting that FalconX Bravo, Inc. is registered with
the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a swap dealer focused on
digital asset derivatives.
Highlights Institutional Growth Across
Markets
The company added that
the MiCA authorization accompaniments its recently announced acquisition of
21Shares, which it said will further support its institutional operations in
Europe's digital asset market.
Last year, the company
partnered with Standard
Chartered to strengthen banking services for institutional clients. Under
the agreement, the bank provides global banking infrastructure and supports
cross-border settlements across multiple currencies, enabling FalconX to expand
its trading and financing services for institutional customers.
FalconX said it
currently serves more than 2,000 institutional clients worldwide, including
asset managers, hedge funds, banks, family offices, and digital asset firms.
Since its launch, the company said it has facilitated more than $2.5 trillion
in trading volume and originated over $8 billion in institutional financing.
This article was written by Tareq Sikder at www.financemagnates.com.
