regulators

The UK regulatory authority, after receiving feedback on the digital asset market, has decided to formulate and publish a tokenization roadmap to enhance market confidence in regulatory rules and infrastructure.

South Korean investors are once again pushing to delay the cryptocurrency capital gains tax scheduled to be implemented on January 1, 2027, but regulators insist on proceeding as planned. According to the South Korean National Assembly's electronic petition system, a petition requesting a two-year delay of the crypto tax plan has garnered 50,000 valid signatures, reaching the legislative review threshold, and will be automatically submitted for consideration by the relevant standing committee.South Korea plans to impose a 22% tax (including a 20% basic tax rate and a 2% local tax) on the portion of annual income from digital assets exceeding 2.5 million Korean won (approximately $1,856), covering income from the sale, transfer, and lending of cryptocurrency assets. This tax has been postponed three times since it was first discussed in 2022. Petitioners argue that the majority of crypto investors are suffering significant losses, with major South Korean crypto companies experiencing a decline in operating profits of up to 90%. Implementing the tax at this time would kick young people's wealth ladder away and could push investors toward offshore platforms.In May of this year, a petition calling for the abolition of the crypto tax reached the 50,000 signature threshold within eight days of submission but did not advance further. Meanwhile, the government's stance remains firm, with the nominee for the Minister of Economy and Finance, Lee Heung-ik (phonetic), stating last weekend that the crypto tax plan is proceeding as scheduled, and the National Tax Service will announce detailed tax standards later this year.

According to Bloomberg, U.S. regulators released a statement on Friday announcing a proposed guideline on third-party risk management for banks. The Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the National Credit Union Administration stated that the proposal aims to help banks and credit unions "better align and customize their third-party risk management practices to match the risks of various third-party relationships."Federal Reserve staff indicated in a memorandum that as this plan is introduced, banks are increasingly outsourcing certain functions and relying on third-party relationships to improve efficiency and reduce costs. The plan will be open for public comment, is non-binding, and aims to focus institutions' regulatory attention on a principles-based approach to such risks. Federal Reserve Governor Barr opposed the proposal, citing concerns about the standards for "significant financial risks."

According to Bloomberg, Trade.xyz and Hyperliquid are inspired by their success and are pursuing grander goals. They are lobbying regulators in hopes of opening pre-IPO perpetual contracts in the United States, claiming that these tools can help modernize the traditional IPO process by improving price discovery. Hyperliquid operates outside the United States and has not officially opened to U.S. traders. Trade.xyz is also subject to the same restrictions.

The Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC) held a meeting of the Communications Review Subcommittee and determined that the overseas prediction market platform Polymarket provided illegal betting, deciding to implement access blocking measures against it. The committee judged that Polymarket's business model is based on the outcomes of events that users cannot control, such as politics, sports, elections, and weather, adopting a "winner takes all" profit and loss structure that fosters speculative psychology; the platform operator is responsible for market establishment, trading rule setting, and overall operational management, providing a virtual asset acceptance and settlement system, which effectively creates an environment for raising and delivering user funds, and profits by charging transaction fees through share trading, violating South Korea's Criminal Law and the National Sports Promotion Act.Polymarket argued that the platform operates based on non-custodial peer-to-peer trading and smart contracts, and does not directly raise funds, manage funds, or issue sports promotion voting rights. However, the committee responded that one cannot evade the applicability of domestic laws in South Korea based on technical characteristics such as whether Korean language services are provided, decentralized technology, or centralized trading interfaces. Given that the platform has actually provided illegal betting to South Korean users, access blocking is unavoidable to protect domestic users.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced that it has shut down multiple websites of the digital asset platform Yepbit and warned users not to trade with the platform. ASIC received reports from several investors stating that they were unable to withdraw funds from the platform. Yepbit claims to offer digital asset and futures trading services globally, including for Australian investors.ASIC stated that Yepbit fabricated the claim of "ASIC freezing funds" in order to delay investors' refund requests. Yepbit does not hold an Australian financial services license and is not registered with AUSTRAC as a virtual asset service provider. ASIC reminds investors to verify whether the platform holds a license and to exercise extreme caution with investment opportunities that cannot be verified.

According to Bloomberg, informed sources revealed that the U.S. government department responsible for investigating violations of chip export controls is currently conducting a systematic review of how Chinese AI companies obtain advanced chips from Nvidia through legal means, focusing on their behavior of renting computing power in third countries. This move stems from recent technological breakthroughs achieved by Chinese AI companies, indicating that they still have the capability to acquire and use top-tier hardware despite U.S. export restrictions on chips to China. Analysts believe that this review may prompt the U.S. to further tighten regulatory rules on computing power leasing in third countries to close existing loopholes in the export control system.

According to Cointelegraph, Australia's internet regulator has filed a lawsuit against Telegram, accusing it of failing to remove content that supports terrorism.Previously, Russia accused Telegram founder Pavel Durov of assisting terrorist activities and issued an international arrest warrant.

One year ago, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the "Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act," known as the GENIUS Act, marking the first time the U.S. initiated the construction of a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins. The GENIUS Act requires federal regulatory agencies to establish governance rules for stablecoins, covering issuer reserves, governance, and operational requirements.Relevant details are still being developed by agencies such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

According to The Block, U.S. regulators failed to issue the final rules necessary to implement the federal stablecoin framework within the one-year deadline set by the GENIUS Act. This act was signed into law by Trump on July 18, 2025, requiring the OCC, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, the NCUA, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and state stablecoin regulatory agencies to complete the supporting rulemaking by no later than July 18, 2026.As of the afternoon of July 18 local time, the main rule proposals released by the OCC, FDIC, NCUA, and the Treasury remain in the proposal stage, with some rules related to the Federal Reserve and anti-money laundering regulation still open for public comment. The report notes that the act does not stipulate that missing the deadline will automatically extend it, nor does it suspend the relevant statutory requirements or delay the overall framework's effectiveness.Among them, the OCC's comprehensive implementation proposal covers reserve assets, capital, liquidity, custody, risk control, and reporting requirements; the FDIC's proposal involves reserves, redemption, custody, and the deposit insurance treatment of stablecoin reserves; the NCUA proposed licensing and operational risk control plans in February and May, respectively, but the comment period for the latter only ended the day before the deadline, making it objectively impossible to complete formal rulemaking before the statutory deadline. The report indicates that this means that some key rules necessary for the operation of the stablecoin framework will not be finalized until at least after the deadline.

According to BLOCKMEDIA, the South Korean police are investigating a case of political interference in the competition of the cryptocurrency market. A former assistant to independent lawmaker Kim Byung-ki is accused of pressuring the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) in February last year to force Upbit to terminate its fee waiver activities for $USDC and $USDT, in order to alleviate the financial pressure on its competitor Bithumb, which was suffering due to a zero-fee promotion.The suspicion arises from the fact that the assistant obtained an informal advisory position at Bithumb months after the interference, while at the same time, the lawmaker's son was also hired by the exchange as an intern. Bithumb denies any knowledge of political interference and insists that the fee adjustments were independent business decisions.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) plans to block the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) from quickly listing a 24x7 oil contract due to concerns that the energy market is not ready to handle a surge of around-the-clock derivative contracts.CME stated in June that it plans to offer around-the-clock trading for a futures contract linked to WTI crude oil, based on 10 barrels, arguing that investors want to manage their positions "whenever news breaks." On Wednesday, CME submitted a self-certification application for this new product, meaning the CFTC has only one day to intervene, or the contract will be available for trading. According to informed sources, the CFTC plans to block CME's self-certification.CFTC Chairman Michael C. Selig has met in recent weeks with executives from energy companies such as Shell, Vitol, BP, and ExxonMobil. Another application submitted by CME for the same product (which requires a 45-day review period) is still under consideration by the regulatory agency.

According to Decrypt, the Kenya Capital Markets Authority is tendering for blockchain monitoring tools to track fraud, money laundering, and sanctions evasion across more than 20 public blockchains. This move aims to support law enforcement needs under Kenya's new cryptocurrency legal framework.The platform will automatically issue alerts for high-risk wallets, large transfers, mixers, darknet-associated addresses, and sanctioned entities, and will screen transactions against the sanctions lists of the United Nations and the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control.

According to The Block, South Korean media regulators will give Polymarket an opportunity to respond before deciding whether to take corrective action against its prediction market platform.Regulators are reviewing whether Polymarket's services constitute illegal gambling activities prohibited by South Korean law.

According to Livecoins, the Chilean Financial Market Commission (CMF) announced the cancellation of the registration qualifications of the cryptocurrency platform Plusspay, due to its investigation revealing connections with the Venezuelan criminal organization "Tren de Aragua," which was used to provide financial support to the gang.In addition to Plusspay, several other institutions, including Pixeltec and Iuinvest, that failed to submit complete information on time as required by the Financial Technology Law (Lei Fintec) have also had their qualifications to provide services in the Chilean market revoked. These institutions are prohibited from expanding their customer base and may only conduct operations related to clearing services and returning frozen funds to existing users. Regulators emphasized that payment and cryptocurrency service providers must enhance transparency to prevent money laundering and illegal fund flows.

According to Cryptopolitan, India's financial intelligence agency has requested three major local cryptocurrency exchanges to provide information on over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency transactions valued at over $10,000.The directive requires exchanges to maintain OTC records since January 2026, focusing on beneficial ownership, particularly transactions where private companies or intermediaries may conceal the true owners of funds. OTC transactions are negotiated directly between the platform and clients, helping large buyers avoid public market price fluctuations, but also increasing the risk of lack of transparency, thus being viewed by regulators as high-risk channels for money laundering, tax evasion, and cross-border capital flows.India remains one of the largest cryptocurrency markets globally, but there is no official data on the size of the OTC market.

The cryptocurrency trading platform Bybit stated that it has noted its inclusion in the Investor Alert List of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and is actively communicating with the Monetary Authority of Singapore to further understand the basis for this listing.Bybit claims that the company has maintained open and constructive communication with MAS and continues to take measures to prevent users in Singapore from accessing its platform, including explicitly restricting access in its terms of service and geo-blocking Singapore IPs. It currently does not provide services to users in Singapore and stated that it will continue to cooperate with regulatory authorities globally. Updates will be announced in a timely manner if there are further developments.

On June 8, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO) sent a letter to Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Travis Hill. The letter pointed out that blockchain-related financial products and services have significantly increased, and blockchain technology has been placed on the high-risk list. U.S. GAO recommended establishing a relevant coordination mechanism to assist regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, in jointly identifying risks and timely implementing regulatory responses.In addition, according to the GENIUS Act passed last year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is the primary regulatory agency overseeing stablecoin issuers under banks. U.S. GAO also suggested that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation rotate case managers assigned to banks to reduce threats to independence. The collapse of three banks related to the cryptocurrency industry in 2023 raised questions about whether regulatory agencies took sufficient action.

The Financial Supervisory Service of South Korea stated that the tense situation in the Middle East and market expectations for interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve are driving fluctuations in the Korean won exchange rate. The Financial Supervisory Service has requested banks to strengthen risk management measures to cope with market turmoil.In addition, the Financial Supervisory Service and the Bank of Korea will conduct inspections on speculative Korean won trading. The Financial Supervisory Service emphasized that excessive volatility in the foreign exchange market and unilateral positions are undesirable, and stated that the fundamentals of the South Korean economy and external credibility remain solid.