How Did Operation ASTERIX Target Crypto Investors? Cybersecurity firm Rapid7 has uncovered a cryptocurrency phishing campaign that collected roughly 885,000 phone numbers and used account-validation tools, fake support messages and counterfeit wallet applications to identify and attack crypto investors. The campaign, tracked as Operation ASTERIX, included phone-number datasets from several countries. The largest file contained 316,002 German mobile numbers, while other directories covered Hong Kong, Bulgaria, the UK, the US, Canadian fintech users and lists associated with Ledger customers across multiple countries. Rather than contacting the entire dataset at random, the attackers used automated tools to determine which phone numbers were associated with cryptocurrency accounts. Rapid7 found 43,066 confirmed crypto accounts within the German dataset alone, equivalent to a hit rate of about 13.6%. The recovered infrastructure also contained a Binance lead panel showing 5,576 validated crypto targets queued for attack. Separate tooling was designed to check phone numbers against Kraken accounts, while other recovered material included fake emails impersonating Crypto.com and Binance. This filtering made the campaign more dangerous than broad phishing attempts because attackers could concentrate their resources on people already known or strongly suspected to own digital assets. How Were Attackers Trying To Steal Crypto? Operation ASTERIX combined phishing emails with voice calls and counterfeit cryptocurrency wallet software. Victims could first receive an email appearing to come from a legitimate crypto company before being contacted by someone impersonating customer support. The attackers could reference information obtained during the account-validation process, including names, phone numbers, locations and exchange associations. That information made support calls appear more credible and increased the chance that victims would follow instructions. Targets were then directed toward fake applications impersonating Ledger, Trezor and Exodus. The applications were designed to capture wallet recovery phrases, which can provide complete control over cryptocurrency held in a self-custody wallet. The operation therefore targeted a weakness that technical security measures cannot fully eliminate: convincing the asset owner to voluntarily provide the credentials needed to move the funds. That risk has become an important source of crypto losses. Hacken reported that phishing and social engineering accounted for $306 million of the roughly $482 million stolen across the industry during the first quarter of 2026. Investor Takeaway Operation ASTERIX shows how attackers can turn leaked or collected personal data into highly targeted crypto scams. For investors, protecting a seed phrase remains critical even when an email, phone call or wallet application appears to contain genuine account information. What Role Did AI Play In The Campaign? Rapid7 also found evidence that artificial intelligence coding assistants were used extensively while the attackers developed and maintained the operation. Recovered material showed AI tools being used to package applications, modify phishing infrastructure, troubleshoot software builds and obfuscate malicious code. The attackers also attempted to bypass safety controls when an AI system resisted parts of the development process. The use of AI does not create a fundamentally new form of phishing, but it can reduce the technical work required to build and modify malicious infrastructure. Attackers can potentially produce convincing applications, adapt campaigns and troubleshoot software more quickly without needing the same level of specialized expertise. For cryptocurrency users, that could increase the volume and sophistication of scams while making visual appearance a weaker indicator of whether an application or support interaction is legitimate. Why Are Phishing Attacks Difficult For Crypto Investors? Cryptocurrency phishing has remained effective because transactions are often irreversible and self-custody places control directly with the user. Once an attacker obtains a valid recovery phrase or persuades a victim to approve a malicious transaction, recovering the assets can be extremely difficult. Recent incidents show the range of techniques being used. A crypto investor lost nearly $1 million in July after approving a malicious token transaction on Ethereum, while a counterfeit Ledger Live application distributed through the Microsoft Store previously resulted in $588,000 being stolen across 38 transactions. The ASTERIX operation adds another concern: attackers increasingly appear able to combine data from several sources before approaching a victim. Someone receiving a call from a supposed exchange representative may therefore hear accurate details about their account or personal information even though the caller has no legitimate connection to the platform. That makes independent verification more important. Investors should avoid providing recovery phrases under any circumstances and should access wallet or exchange software through independently verified official channels rather than links supplied through unsolicited emails or calls. For exchanges and wallet providers, the campaign also increases pressure to prevent account-enumeration tools from confirming whether phone numbers belong to existing customers. Reducing that information leak can make it harder for attackers to convert large datasets into targeted lists of known cryptocurrency holders.

X is in talks to pay its most influential creators in stablecoins such as Circle's USDC, according to a CoinDesk report, a move that would route royalty payouts onto blockchain rails and fold crypto into Elon Musk's growing payments business. A person familiar with the plans told CoinDesk the discussions remain active and that they also advise other social platforms testing stablecoins to pay influencer commissions. X did not respond to the outlet's request for comment at the time of this writing. The reported interest surfaces as stablecoins push past a combined $301 billion market cap and work their way into everyday payment flows, from small businesses to multinationals shifting large sums between subsidiaries. USDC holds roughly 24.03% of that supply at $72.464 billion, trailing Tether's USDT, which controls 60.68% at $182.962 billion. A stablecoin payout rail at X's scale would channel fresh demand toward whichever token it picks. Not Musk's First Crypto Rail Musk's companies already move money over stablecoins, with SpaceX collecting Starlink payments in them across emerging markets and settling cross-border transfers without touching banks. That template gives X a proven path for paying a scattered creator base in dollars without wiring cash through slow, costly correspondent banks. X leaned further in during March by hiring Benji Taylor as head of design, a role wired into both xAI and SpaceX. Taylor led design at Base, Coinbase's blockchain network, and brings deep experience in wallets and decentralized finance to a company positioning itself for on-chain payments. X's own payments push makes the timing logical. X Money went live for US users in late June with a Visa debit card and money transmitter licenses in 41 states plus DC, but it shipped fiat-only, with no stablecoin or on-chain settlement. Senator Elizabeth Warren pressed Musk ahead of the launch on whether X Money's stablecoin ambitions could threaten financial stability and leave users without deposit insurance. USDC itself sits at the center of these plans, and Circle recently renewed its distribution deal with Coinbase while ruling out payouts to token holders, cementing the rails a company like X would tap. A Rebuilt Creator Deal X is tearing up how it pays the people who post, retiring its Revenue Sharing program and standing up the Original Content Rewards Program in its place. The new system pays for substance, targeting creators who bring "original ideas, expertise, reporting, creativity, and commentary" to X, the company said. Settling those rewards in stablecoins would let X reach a global creator base directly, though no payment method is official yet. YouTube already lets US creators in its Partner Program take earnings in PayPal's PYUSD, with PayPal handling the conversion on the back end. Meta went live with USDC creator payouts in the Philippines and Colombia, routing the money over Solana and Polygon. Big platforms keep quietly wiring stablecoins into how they pay talent, and X looks set to join the list.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission removed 3,106 fake cryptocurrency platforms and more than 19,400 total online scams in the 2025-26 financial year, the regulator disclosed on 17 August. The crypto takedowns rose nearly 30% from the prior year, while total scam removals surged 182%. Deepfake Celebrity Networks Drive A$7.4 Million in Losses ASIC said criminal syndicates are using generative AI to build interconnected webs of deception that make simple online verification unreliable. The networks combine deepfake video and audio impersonations of public figures with fabricated news articles, spoofed media sites, and synthetic reviews to steer victims toward fake trading platforms. The most impersonated public figures in FY26 included Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, finance commentators Tom Piotrowski and Alan Kohler, and politicians Jacqui Lambie and Angus Taylor, according to the National Anti-Scam Centre. Losses linked to celebrity impersonation scams reached A$7.4 million (approximately US$5.2 million) based on Scamwatch reports over the period. Across all categories, ASIC took down 7,051 fake investment platforms, a 151% increase. Phishing removals rose 279% to 5,476 links. In the prior financial year, the regulator removed a total of 6,915 scam sites, social media advertisements, phishing links, and crypto investment scams. Over the past three years, ASIC has removed more than 33,400 malicious links, fake platforms, and social media advertisements tied to investment fraud. ASIC Chair Warns Online Verification No Longer Sufficient ASIC Chair Sarah Court said Australians should be especially cautious when they encounter celebrity or influencer endorsements of investment opportunities online. "AI is making investment scams more convincing and harder to detect. A simple online search is not enough to verify whether an opportunity is legitimate," Court said in the regulator's statement. "The presence of polished content, familiar branding, or convincing testimonials does not mean an investment is genuine." The warning carries weight because scammers are now poisoning the channels investors use for due diligence. Where earlier fraud relied on a single fake website, AI-powered operations create mutually reinforcing layers. A deepfake advertisement leads to a spoofed news article, which links to a fraudulent platform displaying fabricated reviews. Each element validates the others, and a web search surfaces the scam material rather than filtering it out. Crypto Scams Remain a Fraction of Australia's A$2.18 Billion Problem The ACCC and National Anti-Scam Centre reported A$2.18 billion in total Australian scam losses during calendar 2025, with investment scams accounting for A$837.7 million. The FY26 celebrity-impersonation figure of A$7.4 million is a narrow slice of that total, but it measures only the cases where victims identified a specific impersonated figure in their report. The true cost of AI-facilitated crypto fraud is likely far larger, as many victims do not recognise the deepfake element or do not report at all. ASIC and Scamwatch urged investors to verify entities through the regulator's Professional Registers before transferring funds.  The regulator also noted that scammers routinely steal legitimate Australian Financial Services Licence numbers and impersonate registered firms, making even licence checks insufficient on their own. Whether Australia's incoming mandatory industry codes under the Scam Prevention Framework will slow the creation of new deepfake networks remains an open regulatory question for FY27-28.

Average monthly crypto trading volume across South Korea's five major won-based exchanges fell 21.7% from 125.2 trillion won in Q4 2025 to 98.1 trillion won in Q1 2026, according to CoinGecko data. The contraction at Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax reflects the financial damage already visible in exchange earnings. How Far Volumes Have Fallen Upbit, which controls roughly 72% of domestic trading activity in Q1, saw volumes decline 23.4% in Q1. Bithumb's drop was steeper at 32.1%, according to CoinGecko. Together, the two platforms handle approximately 96% of all Korean crypto trading, a concentration level the Financial Services Commission aims to reduce through ownership caps under Phase 2 of the Digital Asset Basic Act. The decline deepened through the first half. Combined trading volume across the five exchanges fell 54.6% year over year in H1 2026, generating roughly $366.58 billion in total volume, NexBlock reported.  The broader crypto market contributed to the downturn. Bitcoin fell more than 30%, dropping from roughly $90,000 at the start of 2026 to about $60,000 by the end of June. Ethereum declined from approximately $3,000 to $1,600 over the same period. Bithumb's Loss and Upbit's Margin Squeeze  Bithumb's first-half operating revenue fell 48.7% to 168.8 billion won ($120 million) from 329.2 billion won ($233 million), while operating profit dropped 83.4% to 14.9 billion won ($11 million), according to its filing with the Financial Supervisory Service. The exchange swung to a net loss of 108.7 billion won, reversing a 55 billion won ($39 million) profit a year earlier. Virtually all of Bithumb's revenue comes from platform trading fees, leaving the company acutely exposed to volume swings. "The recent decline in performance is attributed to a contraction in liquidity across the global digital asset market," Bithumb said in its filing. Upbit parent Dunamu fared better but still posted sharp declines. Consolidated operating revenue fell 49.1% to 408.1 billion won ($289 million). Operating profit dropped 79.7% to 111.5 billion won ($79 million), while net profit fell 74.1% to 108.4 billion won ($77 million). Dunamu at least remained profitable, but the pace of decline matched Bithumb's. Tighter Regulation Meets a Thinner Market Korean regulators have continued to tighten the operating environment. On 18 August, the Korea Communications Standards Commission ordered domestic ISPs to block access to Polymarket, ruling that the prediction market constitutes illegal gambling under the Criminal Act.  The decision followed a formal review that began in May. It closes off a potential revenue diversification path that US competitors like Coinbase and Robinhood have pursued with their own prediction market offerings. The regulatory stance also includes stricter operational requirements imposed after Bithumb accidentally distributed 620,000 BTC to user accounts in February, triggering a 17% flash crash in the BTC/KRW pair. The Financial Supervisory Service now requires all domestic exchanges to implement automated ledger-to-wallet reconciliation every five minutes, following a Financial Services Commission rule developed with DAXA. The volume decline is not unique to Korea, but its severity stands out. Trading economics are under pressure across global platforms: Coinbase's transaction revenue fell 21% year over year in Q2, and Payward's adjusted EBITDA dropped 71% even as its revenue rose 17% on non-trading lines. Upbit and Bithumb offer no derivatives, no margin, and no staking yields that would sustain fee income when spot activity dries up.  When Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix delivered record profits on AI-driven semiconductor demand, capital rotated out of crypto and into the KOSPI, which roughly doubled over the preceding 12 months. Korea's combined crypto trading volume fell 54.6% year over year in H1, compared with Payward's 18% decline in platform volume and Coinbase's 21% drop in transaction revenue. The open question is whether volumes recover when the broader market stabilises or whether Korea's retail crypto base has structurally contracted. The Senate's 15 September procedural vote on the CLARITY Act, if the bill eventually passes, would create the regulatory framework for US exchanges to deepen product offerings. Korean exchanges face the opposite trajectory. The Polymarket block and exchange-ownership caps under DABA Phase 2 point toward a market that is shrinking by design, not just by cycle.

Ben McKenzie's anti-crypto documentary Everyone Is Lying to You for Money will begin streaming globally on 22 August through Eventive, an independent film platform, after major streaming services declined to license it, Variety reported.  The 90-minute film, which McKenzie self-financed for approximately $1 million, will be available for a $19.98 ticket covering the 22 August live broadcast and on-demand access through 5 September, with viewers having 48 hours to finish once they begin watching. It will also include a live Q&A with McKenzie, his wife Morena Baccarin and other guests. Why Streamers Passed on the Film McKenzie believes the documentary's timing made it commercially toxic for large platforms. The film portrays cryptocurrency as systemically corrupt and calls for stricter regulation. It is launching while President Donald Trump has earned $1.4 billion in combined crypto-related income during his first year back in office, according to Variety's interview with the filmmaker. "If you're a corporation and you're trying to decide on the marginal value of buying an independent movie that you don't have to buy, and potentially incurring the wrath of the Trump administration, it's a pretty easy decision," McKenzie told Variety. "The risk calculus is not in our favor, and they'd rather just not buy it." The documentary premiered at SXSW London in June 2025 and screened at DOC NYC that November. It received a limited theatrical release on 17 April 2026 and grossed roughly $150,000 at the box office. It holds a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. McKenzie, who holds an economics degree from the University of Virginia, funded the production from savings and roughly $1 million he earned shorting crypto-related frauds, he told Variety. McKenzie's Broader Campaign Against Crypto Legislation The release lands in the same fortnight that the CLARITY Act, the primary US crypto market-structure bill, stalled in the Senate. The chamber adjourned for its August recess without voting on the legislation. Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed a cloture motion before the break, pushing the next procedural vote to 15 September, but passage requires 60 votes and at least seven Democrats.  Polymarket prices the odds of the bill becoming law in 2026 at roughly 24% as of 20 August, down from 82% in February. McKenzie has actively lobbied against the bill. He appeared at a Capitol Hill press conference on 14 July alongside Senator Chris Murphy and Americans for Financial Reform.  He argued the legislation would weaken SEC oversight by shifting authority to the CFTC, which has fewer resources and no provision to prevent the president from profiting from crypto. Senator Bernie Sanders amplified that message on 29 July. Sanders shared a video of his conversation with McKenzie on X, calling the CLARITY Act "corrupt" and stating that crypto companies spent $189 million on the midterm elections, accounting for 37% of all corporate political spending during the cycle, Benzinga reported. The Industry's Response and the White House Summit SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci pushed back after the Senate recess. "You're not bright enough to realize that nothing stops Bitcoin," Scaramucci posted in response to McKenzie's celebration of the bill's stall, Benzinga reported. Scaramucci has been a vocal advocate for the CLARITY Act and has criticised both parties for failing to reach a bipartisan agreement. On 17 August, McKenzie appeared on BNN Bloomberg to discuss the documentary and the crypto sector, noting that the "heroes" of crypto "are now sitting in jail cells," a reference to Sam Bankman-Fried and Alex Mashinsky, both of whom he interviewed for the film before their convictions. The film's distribution timing also puts it alongside the White House crypto summit held on 19 August, where President Trump hosted executives from Coinbase, Ripple, Gemini and Polymarket alongside SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Michael Selig.  That summit focused on crypto policy, with President Trump publicly urging Congress to pass a "fair version of the CLARITY Act" while the CLARITY Act remains stalled. McKenzie's documentary effectively presents the opposing case to the policy direction the White House is pursuing. McKenzie set a target of 100,000 viewers over two weeks for the Eventive release. If reached, he told Variety, it would provide a viable template for independent filmmakers to bypass traditional VOD platforms entirely. The streaming window runs from 22 August through 5 September, with a live broadcast at 10:00 PM UTC on opening night.  Whether the audience shows up will test not just McKenzie's distribution bet but how large the appetite actually is for a sustained counter-narrative in a market where US spot bitcoin ETFs shed a net $389.7 million in the week of 10 August, their biggest weekly outflow in six weeks, according to Bloomberg-compiled data.

OpenAI's chief financial officer has put a year on the most-anticipated listing in tech. Sarah Friar told employees at an all-hands meeting on Wednesday that the company "will be a public company in 2027," and could debut sooner if "our business continues to inflect," according to CNBC's reporting of the internal remarks. It is the most concrete timeline yet from a company that has said almost nothing on the record about going public. Friar was careful to frame it as optional rather than urgent. "The IPO is not a finish line, it is a milestone, another fundraise," she told staff, per CNBC, noting that OpenAI raised $122 billion in March and "that gives us flexibility." That round valued the company at about $852 billion, making it one of the most valuable private companies in the world, and Reuters has reported OpenAI targeting a valuation of up to $1 trillion in an eventual listing. The timing remark matters precisely because the company has kept its plans deliberately vague, and because the executive making it has, by earlier accounts, been the one arguing to slow the process down. [caption id="attachment_249200" align="alignnone" width="1640"] OpenAI's valuation has roughly doubled in under a year, and a reported IPO target would push it toward $1 trillion. Source: company funding announcements; IPO target per New York Times · Chart: FinanceFeeds[/caption] What Friar Told OpenAI Staff, and What the Filing Commits To OpenAI confidentially filed its IPO prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June, and has not publicly disclosed a timetable, a filing FinanceFeeds covered when OpenAI moved toward the public markets. A confidential filing is worth understanding for what it does and does not do: it lets a company begin the SEC review process privately, without exposing its draft financials, and it commits the company to nothing. It preserves the option to list, delay, or walk away depending on market conditions. So Friar's "2027 or sooner" is a stated intention layered on top of a filing that is itself non-binding, not a scheduled event. That framing is more pointed given the backdrop. Friar had expressed concern about OpenAI's readiness for public markets, Forbes reported, citing the New York Times, favoring a 2027 timeline over CEO Sam Altman's push for a debut as soon as late 2026. Read against that, "2027 or sooner" is the CFO defending a floor she helped set, not a company straining to go public as fast as it can. Investor Takeaway The confidential filing commits OpenAI to nothing, so "2027 or sooner" is a stated intention rather than a scheduled listing, and the date can still move. Enterprise Passes Consumer The condition Friar attached, "if our business continues to inflect," points to the number the company most wants investors to see. She told investors on August 14 that enterprise revenue is now larger than consumer revenue, a reversal from a roughly 60-40 split favoring consumer at the start of the year. At the all-hands, she showed slides putting the overall revenue run rate up 35% so far this quarter and enterprise up 50%, with the Codex coding tool reaching 20 million weekly active users. OpenAI's annualized revenue run rate has topped $40 billion. A business weighted toward enterprise contracts is generally more durable and higher-margin than one dependent on consumer subscriptions, and it is exactly the profile public-market investors reward. It is also the part of the story that would anchor a prospectus. The counterweight is the cost side: OpenAI's operating losses widened to a reported $12.3 billion in the second quarter, and the scale of its infrastructure commitments is the question any eventual filing will have to answer. The Competition and the Cracks Friar's reassurance to staff, that they should not worry if rival Anthropic lists first because "we are running our own race," was a response to real pressure. Anthropic has also filed confidentially and could go public as soon as this fall, and it recently told investors its second-quarter revenue topped $11.5 billion with positive adjusted operating income, figures that, if accurate, put its quarterly revenue ahead of OpenAI's and its profitability ahead too. FinanceFeeds has tracked the ecosystem strain around these listings, from Nvidia trimming its OpenAI-linked Ohio financing guarantee to Stripe's finalized acquisition of the AI platform OpenRouter. The timing also arrives amid visible turnover in OpenAI's senior ranks. Revenue chief Denise Dresser left after eight months, longtime executive Brad Lightcap announced his departure, and product chief Fidji Simo stepped back earlier in the year, a pattern that has prompted some backers to seek a clearer view of the company's finances and stability before it lists. None of that changes the trajectory toward a listing, but it is the kind of pre-IPO scrutiny a confidential filing is designed to keep private for as long as possible. Investor Takeaway Enterprise revenue overtaking consumer is the single most investable data point here, because it reshapes the eventual prospectus toward the durable, higher-margin profile public investors prefer.

Why Is Bitcoin.com Adding USDU? Bitcoin.com is integrating USDU into its self-custodial web and mobile wallet, expanding distribution for a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin registered with the Central Bank of the UAE. The Ethereum-based token will initially be available for users to hold, send and receive through the Bitcoin.com Wallet. Swap functionality and options to buy and sell USDU are expected to follow through third-party providers. Bitcoin.com also plans to accept USDU for designated services and work toward allowing payments between users and merchants across its products. Availability will depend on the jurisdiction, meaning the full range of planned services may not be accessible to every wallet user. The integration gives USDU access to another consumer-facing crypto wallet only months after its January launch. For Universal Digital, the issuer behind the token, broader wallet support is important because regulatory approval alone does not create stablecoin liquidity. Users also need exchanges, wallets, custodians and payment services where the token can be stored and transferred. What Makes USDU Different From Other Dollar Stablecoins? USDU is issued by Abu Dhabi-based Universal Digital and is the first and currently only Foreign Payment Token registered with the Central Bank of the UAE under its Payment Token Services Regulation. Universal is also regulated by the Abu Dhabi Global Market’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority to issue fiat-referenced tokens. That combination gives USDU a regulatory structure designed around the UAE’s developing rules for tokenized payments and digital assets. The Central Bank’s Payment Token Services Regulation establishes licensing and registration requirements for token issuance, conversion, custody and transfers. Under the framework, a Foreign Payment Token refers to a payment token denominated in a foreign currency, such as the U.S. dollar. The rules are particularly important for digital asset transactions. Payments for virtual assets and virtual asset derivatives in the UAE may be made using fiat currency or a registered Foreign Payment Token. That gives registered tokens such as USDU a regulatory use case that unregistered dollar stablecoins may not have within covered transactions. For stablecoin issuers, this creates competition based not only on market capitalization and trading liquidity but also on whether tokens meet the requirements of individual jurisdictions. USDT and USDC dominate global dollar stablecoin activity, but locally regulated alternatives can compete where domestic rules restrict which tokens businesses may use for certain payments. Investor Takeaway USDU remains far smaller than the largest dollar stablecoins, but Bitcoin.com gives it another distribution channel. Its longer-term test is whether UAE regulatory status can translate into deeper liquidity, wider wallet support and real payment activity. How Is USDU Building Liquidity? The Bitcoin.com integration follows several efforts to expand USDU beyond its initial issuance framework. Zodia Custody added support for the stablecoin in July, allowing institutional clients to hold and transfer the token through its custody infrastructure. A USDT-USDU liquidity pool then launched on Uniswap in August, giving users a decentralized venue for exchanging the two stablecoins. The pool is particularly relevant because it connects USDU directly with USDT, the largest dollar stablecoin by trading activity, rather than relying entirely on centralized exchange listings. These integrations address different parts of the stablecoin market. Zodia provides institutional custody, Uniswap provides on-chain liquidity and Bitcoin.com adds access through a self-custodial consumer wallet. That distribution network will matter if Universal wants USDU to move beyond being primarily a regulatory product. Stablecoins generally become more useful as the number of venues accepting them grows, because holders can transfer funds between wallets, trading platforms, decentralized applications and payment services without first converting into another token. Can UAE Regulation Help USDU Compete? USDU faces a difficult scale challenge. Established stablecoins already benefit from large circulating supplies, deep trading pairs and integration across hundreds of crypto services. A newer token must build those connections while persuading users that switching from existing alternatives offers a practical advantage. The UAE regulatory framework could provide one such advantage. Businesses operating under the country’s digital asset rules may have stronger reasons to use a registered Foreign Payment Token when conducting transactions covered by the Payment Token Services Regulation. Bitcoin.com’s planned merchant and payment functionality could extend that use case if it receives meaningful adoption. However, much will depend on which services become available in the UAE and other jurisdictions, how easily users can acquire USDU and whether liquidity improves as additional platforms add support. For now, the integration expands USDU from institutional custody and decentralized trading into another widely accessible wallet environment. The next measure of progress will be whether that wider availability produces sustained transfers, trading liquidity and payment demand rather than simply increasing the number of platforms listing the token.

Frontrunning remains a threat for Solana traders, especially in high-volatility memecoin and DEX environments. It comes into play when a broker or trader acts on non-public, advance knowledge of a pending, large transaction. They place their own personal or institutional trades ahead of that order to profit from the expected price movement. While Solana does not run a public mempool, transactions are still visible to validators and searchers before confirmation. They go straight to the upcoming block leader and expire after about one minute. Maximal extractable value (MEV) bots exploit the waiting period and place their own transaction before you do. A remote procedure call (RPC) endpoint can shield your transactions from predatory MEV bots by routing them through private channels or bundle systems that obscure intent until execution. Here are five of the most effective anti-frontrunning RPC endpoints that are sought after by Solana traders. Key Takeaways Jito Block Engine, Helius, QuickNode, Triton One and Astralane offer different approaches to reducing frontrunning and MEV exposure on Solana. Private routing, Jito bundles and validator-level controls are the main tools used to protect Solana trades from harmful transaction ordering. No anti-frontrunning RPC endpoint provides complete protection, making execution settings, slippage controls, and transaction routing equally important. 1. Jito Block Engine Jito's block engine supports a feature called DontFront, which forces a protected transaction to appear first in any Jito bundle containing it. The trader appends a valid public key beginning with the prefix “jitodontfront” to any instruction within the transaction as the read-only account. The block engine is programmed to ensure that all bundles having this transaction are forced to position it at index zero. This prevents any bot from inserting an order in front of it. This reduces sandwich risk but does not guarantee protection against every ordering variation, especially if a transaction reaches a validator outside the Jito path. It remains a strong first layer since it is free and needs almost no code change. Jito requires a tip for this transaction path, and Solana recommends a minimum of 1,000 lamports. Traders should also account for priority fees when competing for block space. Since it is free and requires almost no code changes, Jito is suitable for DEX swaps where protection against sandwich attacks is more important than minimizing transaction costs. 2. Helius Helius provides a specialized low-latency submission service called Sender. It routes user transactions in parallel (by appending mev-protect=true to the Sender endpoint URL) across multiple regions directly to trusted validators and Jito, using tip-only mechanics to bypass public mempool scanners.  How to use it: Build and sign the transaction. Add the required priority fee and Sender tip. Encode the transaction in base64. Submit it to the Sender endpoint. Track confirmation separately because a successful submission response does not guarantee on-chain execution. Sender pushes each transaction across several pathways simultaneously, including Jito and staked-validator connections. 3. QuickNode QuickNode's Lil' JIT add-on enables Jito bundle support on existing Solana endpoints. This allows traders to submit up to five transactions as an atomic bundle that executes in order within a single slot, making frontrunning unprofitable. Traders can enable the Lil' JIT add-on on the QuickNode Solana endpoint. Use the sendBundle or sendTransaction RPC methods to route trades through Jito. Tips are sized using live percentile data from the getTipAccounts method. QuickNode currently lists it as an advanced Solana transaction-bundling service for MEV protection and optimized execution. 4. Triton One It is an on-chain program that stores ‘allow’ and ‘block’ lists of validator identities. Triton offers private Solana RPC endpoints with enhanced reliability and low-latency execution, suitable for high-frequency trading. While not explicitly advertising MEV protection, its private infrastructure reduces transaction observability compared to public endpoints. To sign up, select a Solana mainnet endpoint and configure your application to use the private RPC URL. Pair with Jito bundle submission for full MEV protection. When paired with the Yellowstone Jet TPU client, an application checks the current slot leader against these lists before sending. If the leader fails the policy check, the transaction is held and forwarded to the next trusted leader. 5. Astralane Astralane integrates a specific mevProtect boolean flag directly into standard sendTransaction calls, actively deferring delivery until a verified safe block leader is scheduled. It is used as a parallel submission path when speed or routing diversity matters.  Astralane also supports Yellowstone Shield, which lets a sender attach forwarding policies that block validators with a known history of sandwiching, in addition to the relay's own routing logic. Bottom Line The most effective anti-frontrunning RPC endpoints for Solana traders combine private transaction routing, validator controls and Jito-based execution to reduce MEV exposure. Jito, Helius, QuickNode, Triton One and Astralane each take a different approach, giving traders options based on their need for protection, speed and execution reliability. No endpoint can eliminate frontrunning risk. Traders should therefore combine protected RPC infrastructure with tight slippage limits, appropriate priority fees and reliable transaction confirmation to reduce the risk of costly MEV attacks.

XTB has upgraded its Investment Plans so clients can combine individual stocks and exchange-traded funds in one portfolio, choose a ready-made allocation or build a plan from scratch. The next-generation product is now live in the UK, Romania, the Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Spain and Slovakia, according to an XTB rollout update published on August 19, 2026. The change turns a product originally built around baskets of ETFs into a broader portfolio tool. XTB has retained recurring contributions and user-initiated rebalancing, while adding globally diversified templates for different risk levels, concentrated sector portfolios and a do-it-yourself route with access to more than 3,400 stocks and 1,800 ETFs. Stocks Turn an ETF Tool Into a Broader Portfolio Builder The stock component is the clearest functional change. When XTB added Auto Invest to Investment Plans in 2024, clients could create as many as ten portfolios, but each was limited to nine ETFs. The updated help centre says an existing plan will be converted to the do-it-yourself model and a new plan can hold as many as 20 instruments, with an allocation of between 5% and 100% for each holding. That gives investors room to use a diversified ETF as the core of a plan and add selected companies around it. It also introduces company-specific risk that was less prominent in the original ETF-only structure, since a portfolio can now become more dependent on the earnings, valuation and governance of a small number of businesses. XTB is offering three starting points. Ready-made plans use ETFs to build global portfolios ranging from conservative, bond-heavy allocations to aggressive portfolios invested entirely in equity ETFs. Sector plans hold several listed companies from areas such as semiconductors, gaming and aviation, while the do-it-yourself option lets the client set each stock and ETF weight directly. Ready-Made Does Not Mean Fully Managed The ready-made label reduces the blank-page problem faced by a new investor, but it should not be confused with discretionary portfolio management. XTB provides a proposed composition and a risk category, then the client chooses the plan, supplies the capital and decides whether to accept later changes. Sector-plan users receive an optional quarterly update intended to keep the portfolio aligned with leading companies in the chosen industry. That distinction matters because the three routes solve different problems. A global risk-based plan is designed to spread exposure across markets and asset types, while a sector plan deliberately concentrates it. XTB itself describes sector plans as higher risk, so the addition of a ready-made menu does not remove the need to assess concentration, time horizon and the ability to tolerate losses. Joshua Raymond, Managing Director UK at XTB, said: “Over 80% of our new clients in Europe start investing by buying stocks, ETFs, or setting up their individual investment plans. To make this first step even easier, we now offer them ready-made solutions that ensure sector diversification and match their risk tolerance.” He added that investors can use the plans for short goals such as a trip or for longer-term milestones. Automation Still Depends on Market Hours Auto Invest remains available for scheduled contributions, and the platform allocates each deposit according to the weights selected by the client. Rebalancing is available on demand rather than operating as a continuously managed service, so a user still decides when to restore the target allocation. Mixing securities from different countries also affects execution. XTB says purchases within one plan may occur at different times because European and US exchanges do not share the same trading hours. Some orders can therefore execute while other components remain pending, meaning a contribution may not reach its target allocation in a single instant. The Zero-Commission Offer Has Boundaries XTB says setting up and running a plan is free, with no minimum holding period. The entry amount is £15 in the UK and €15 in euro-denominated markets, although the effective minimum can vary with the instruments and weights selected. Clients can operate up to ten plans at once. Stock and ETF transactions are commission-free up to monthly turnover equivalent to €100,000. Above that threshold, XTB charges 0.2%, subject in the UK to a minimum charge of £10, and a 0.5% currency-conversion cost can apply to foreign securities. Investors also continue to bear the expense ratios and other costs embedded in the ETFs they select, so commission-free dealing is not the same as a cost-free portfolio. The UK version has another boundary: XTB says Investment Plans are not available inside its Individual Savings Accounts. That separates the new portfolio tool from the tax-advantaged products in the app, including the Cash ISA that XTB added in April. Long-Term Products Win Clients While CFDs Drive Revenue The redesign has a clear commercial purpose. XTB's first-half figures show that stocks, ETFs and Investment Plans accounted for 82.9% of first transactions by new clients in the European Union. Nominal turnover in shares and ETFs more than doubled from a year earlier to $18.44 billion, while the group acquired 703,333 clients and recorded almost 1.49 million active clients. The revenue mix tells a different story. Contracts for difference generated PLN 1.98 billion of XTB's PLN 2.07 billion gross result from financial instruments in the first half, or about 96%. Longer-term investment products are increasingly the front door for customers, but leveraged trading still finances most of the business. That gap explains why reducing friction in portfolio creation is strategically useful even if the plans do not immediately match the revenue contribution of derivatives. XTB had already reported €11.6 billion in client assets at the end of the first quarter, including more than €4.1 billion in equities and almost €3.6 billion in ETFs. A product that brings both categories into one recurring workflow may help the broker retain clients who arrived for investing rather than short-term trading. European Brokers Are Competing on Guided Investing XTB is entering a crowded part of the retail market. N26 offers free recurring stock and ETF plans from €1 in a wide group of European countries, while BUX distributes active ETF portfolios developed with J.P. Morgan Asset Management through a paid subscription. The products differ, but each attempts to replace instrument-by-instrument selection with a repeatable portfolio process. XTB's version sits between a simple savings plan and a managed portfolio. It gives beginners a template, lets more experienced clients alter the construction, and keeps the execution inside the same app used for stocks, ETFs and derivatives. Its value will depend on whether clients understand the risk labels, costs and concentration of each template, not solely on how quickly a plan can be opened. The rollout across seven European markets broadens that test considerably. Adding stocks and ready-made allocations makes Investment Plans more useful, but it also raises the stakes for clear portfolio information because convenience can simplify execution without simplifying the risks of the assets being bought.

Ninety-seven percent of North American fund managers reported losses from unhedged currency exposure in the first quarter of 2026, even as participation in FX hedging reached a record 94%, according to the MillTech North America Fund Manager FX Report 2026. The average self-reported loss was approximately $731,000, while 12% of respondents put their losses between $1 million and $4.9 million. The figures describe a market in which most managers hedge some forecastable exposure but few eliminate it. The average hedge ratio was 48%, leaving more than half of expected currency risk uncovered on the survey mean. That distinction explains how 94% can use hedges while 97% can still report losses on the positions left open. Hedging Participation Rose From 85% to 94% MillTech surveyed 250 senior finance decision-makers at fund managers in the United States and Canada. Its research disclosure identifies the North American sample as mid-sized asset managers with between $500 million and $20 billion under management, and says Censuswide conducted the research on MillTech's behalf. The 94% participation rate is the highest since MillTech began tracking the measure in 2023. It compares with 85% in the published 2025 North American fund manager survey, 79% in 2024 and 72% in 2023. That makes the latest annual rise nine percentage points based on MillTech's published figures, although the new release describes it as an eight-point increase. Managers also raised the proportion of exposure protected from 45% to 48% and extended average hedge length from five months to about five and a half months. Thirty-five percent plan to raise hedge ratios again, while 63% intend to extend their hedge periods. Among the small group that does not hedge, 69% is considering starting because of current market conditions. Partial Hedges Leave Material Currency Risk A hedge ratio below 100% is often deliberate. Managers may leave exposure open because they expect a favourable currency move, want to preserve liquidity, lack confidence in cash-flow forecasts or consider full protection too expensive. Forecast errors can also create new exposure after a hedge has been placed, especially when portfolio subscriptions, redemptions and asset sales change expected currency balances. The survey's apparently conflicting return findings fit that structure. Although 97% reported losses on unhedged exposure, 94% said dollar volatility had a positive overall effect on fund returns from an FX perspective. A fund can benefit from currency translation or one directional exposure while losing on another unprotected position, and a positive portfolio-level contribution does not mean every FX exposure was profitable. The loss figures should also be read as survey responses rather than audited performance records. The 2025 survey said 37% of managers had suffered losses from unhedged FX positions, but the new 97% result concerns the first quarter of 2026. The size of the jump is striking, although differences in the period covered or question wording mean it should not automatically be treated as a like-for-like deterioration without the underlying questionnaire. Policy Uncertainty Is Delaying Capital US tariffs and trade policy were selected by 34% of respondents as the biggest external influence on hedging strategy. Federal Reserve or Bank of Canada policy received the same share, followed by Middle East geopolitical tensions at 31%. The close distribution suggests managers are reacting to several risks at once rather than adjusting protection around one scheduled event. The effects extend beyond the FX book. Ninety-eight percent said US policy uncertainty had delayed investment decisions and 35% described the delay as significant. A separate MillTech survey published in July found that 90% of mid-sized North American companies had also postponed investment, showing that the policy effect is visible among both corporate treasurers and asset managers. For a fund, delaying a cross-border allocation can protect against entering before a tariff, rate or currency repricing, but waiting also creates an opportunity cost. A longer hedge can improve certainty over the base-currency value of an investment, yet it cannot resolve uncertainty about when capital should be deployed or which assets should receive it. The Cost of Protection Is Rising Ninety-six percent of respondents said hedging costs had risen during the previous year, with an average increase of 57%. Sixty percent reported increases of at least 50%, 11% said costs had more than doubled and 89% said their credit provider had raised interest rates or fees. The cost of an FX hedge is broader than a dealing commission. Forward pricing incorporates the interest-rate differential between two currencies and the time to settlement, as explained in CME Group's guide to FX pricing. Bid-offer spreads, counterparty credit, collateral requirements, liquidity and operational overhead can add further costs, particularly when managers use longer tenors or roll large positions repeatedly. These pressures help explain why the average hedge ratio is still below half despite near-universal participation. Among non-hedgers, 56% named burdensome infrastructure as a barrier, ahead of deploying capital elsewhere at 38% and cost at 31%. MillTech's own expansion is tied to this problem after Apax invested $60 million in the company in April to support North American growth and product development. Digital Instruction Rose While Reported AI Use Fell Fund managers are moving away from manual trade instruction. Half now use in-house systems and 42% use online interfaces, while email fell from 60% in 2025 to 36% and telephone instruction declined from 53% to 31%. Comparative quotes were the leading operational challenge at 24%, followed by forecasting existing currency risk at 23% and fragmented providers at 22%. The AI data moved in the opposite direction. Only 14% said they were already using AI, down from 42% in 2025, even though every respondent was considering AI or automation. MillTech suggests the fall may come from a stricter view of what counts as live AI integration, while 31% selected cyber and privacy concerns as the biggest barrier to wider use. Without identical questions and definitions, the decline should not be read as proof that managers removed AI systems. It may instead separate tools running in production from pilots, conventional automation and products marketed as AI. That distinction matters as vendors introduce AI-assisted hedging and exposure-management tools into workflows that can influence transaction timing and size. More Hedging Does Not Remove the Execution Problem Eric Huttman, CEO of MillTech, said: “North American fund managers are being pulled in several directions at once. Trade tariffs, shifting central bank expectations and geopolitical tensions are making currency moves harder to predict and investment decisions harder to make. The fact that almost every respondent suffered losses from unhedged FX exposure helps explain why hedging participation and ratios are moving higher.” Huttman added: “However, rising currency risks mean firms shouldn’t simply hedge more, how they hedge is just as important. They should use technology to improve pricing transparency, gain clearer visibility of their exposures and reduce the operational friction involved in managing currency risk to protect returns.” The practical issue is therefore no longer whether most North American fund managers hedge. It is whether a 48% average hedge ratio is appropriate for the underlying liabilities, whether forecasts are reliable enough to support longer protection and whether execution savings can offset higher carry, credit and liquidity costs. MillTech's earlier research found that corporate hedge ratios can fall when policy signals are unclear, even when firms expect to add protection later. The latest fund-manager results show the reverse move in 2026: more participants, slightly higher coverage and longer tenors, but substantial residual exposure and a higher price for reducing it.

HSBC and Standard Chartered have completed the first live interbank transaction on Swift’s blockchain-based ledger, moving the network from bank preparation into a real cross-border tokenised deposit transaction. The ledger matched and netted payment obligations between the two banks, but final settlement still took place through existing banking systems rather than on Swift’s blockchain. That distinction defines what has gone live. Swift did not issue money or move a common deposit token from one bank to the other. It provided the shared orchestration layer linking HSBC’s Tokenised Deposit Service with Standard Chartered’s separate tokenised-deposit infrastructure while each bank retained control of its own deposit records, assets and settlement process. What the Transaction Actually Did HSBC and Standard Chartered exchanged payment messages through Swift’s ledger. The resulting obligations were recorded on both banks’ tokenised-deposit systems, then matched and netted on the shared ledger before final settlement through existing systems. Netting can reduce the amount that banks ultimately need to settle by offsetting obligations in opposite directions. Shared validation can also give both institutions the same view of transaction status and reduce reconciliation work, one of the persistent operational costs in correspondent banking. The model is designed to coordinate separate bank ledgers without requiring every participant to issue deposits on one common platform. The announcement does not disclose the transaction value, currency pair, payment corridor, participating client, execution time or final settlement system. Those omissions prevent a quantitative assessment of speed, liquidity savings and cost, and they make this a production milestone rather than evidence that the model is ready for high-volume commercial use. Live Interoperability Is Not Yet End-to-End On-Chain Settlement Swift’s role extends beyond its traditional function as a messaging network because the blockchain ledger records and validates interbank obligations and can apply workflow rules. Even so, the money remains a liability of the issuing bank and the banks retain authority over keys, funding and settlement. Swift has said finality can be achieved through real-time gross settlement systems, correspondent banking relationships or another mechanism agreed by the participants. This hybrid design is deliberate. It lets banks add an always-available coordination layer while continuing to use regulated deposit money, established compliance controls and existing settlement arrangements. It also means the new ledger does not by itself remove every operating-hour restriction in the final cash leg. The same boundary appeared when Hong Kong moved Project Ensemble into live-value testing. Tokenised deposits and assets could operate on programmable infrastructure, but interbank settlement initially continued through the territory’s existing real-time gross settlement system. The remaining challenge is to make finality as continuously available as the tokenised instruction and orchestration layers. Swift Reached Its First Live Transaction Six Weeks After Launch Swift said on July 9 that its ledger was ready for initial use after nine months of development, with 17 banks across six continents preparing live pilots. HSBC and Standard Chartered were on that list alongside ANZ, BNP Paribas, BNY, Citi, DBS, First Abu Dhabi Bank, FirstRand, Itaú Unibanco, Lloyds, Mashreq, MUFG, OCBC, UBS, UOB and Wells Fargo. The first transaction therefore arrived about six weeks after the controlled launch. Swift plans to expand the ledger’s functions and availability as more participating banks begin live activity. The current system uses an architecture compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine and based on Hyperledger Besu, while Swift operates the shared workflow and each bank runs its own environment. The design tries to solve a fragmentation problem that has followed tokenised deposits from their earliest bank deployments. A deposit token that works inside one institution’s network delivers faster internal treasury transfers, but its usefulness declines when the recipient banks elsewhere and cannot recognise or redeem the same instrument. Connecting separate bank systems through a network already used by more than 11,500 institutions is Swift’s answer to that scaling problem. HSBC and Standard Chartered Already Had Live Deposit Platforms HSBC’s service converts designated bank deposits into digital records backed one-for-one by balances at the bank. Its Tokenised Deposit Service supports transfers among participating HSBC locations and provides clients with blockchain wallet balances and continuous visibility. HSBC expanded the service from Hong Kong and Singapore into the UK, Luxembourg and the United States, supporting dollars, euros, sterling, Hong Kong dollars and Singapore dollars. The service initially demonstrated the value of tokenisation inside a bank network. HSBC’s Hong Kong launch with Ant International allowed corporate treasury transfers between wallets under the same client relationship. The Swift transaction adds the harder step of coordinating obligations between two regulated banks with different ledgers. Standard Chartered separately launched tokenised deposit solutions with Ant International in Hong Kong and Singapore in December 2025. Those services support real-time transfers in Hong Kong dollars, offshore renminbi, Singapore dollars and US dollars through Ant’s Whale treasury platform. The Swift connection gives the bank a route to interact with another issuer rather than confining tokenised liquidity to a single-bank arrangement. Why Banks Prefer Tokenised Deposits to a Common Stablecoin A tokenised deposit remains a claim on the bank that issued it. It is a digital representation of an existing commercial bank deposit, not a separate cryptocurrency issued against a pool of reserve assets. That keeps the instrument within the bank’s prudential, compliance and deposit framework, although the precise protections still depend on jurisdiction, client type and product terms. The Bank for International Settlements has argued that tokenised deposits can better preserve the singleness of money when they do not circulate as bearer instruments and ultimately settle in central bank money. Stablecoins can trade away from par or create an additional issuer and redemption layer. Banks instead want programmable deposits to retain the legal and balance-sheet relationship already established with their customers. That approach competes with other models for tokenised cross-border payments. Project Agorá combined tokenised commercial bank deposits and central bank reserves on a shared programmable prototype, allowing atomic multicurrency settlement in seconds. Networks such as Partior and Japan’s DCJPY project are pursuing interoperability through connected multicurrency deposit platforms. The Corporate Treasury Case Depends on Finality Lewis Sun, Head of Digital Currencies at HSBC, said: “HSBC’s interoperability transaction with Standard Chartered via Swift is a landmark moment for the promise of tokenised deposits. It demonstrates how digital money issued by banks can be interoperable across institutions while maintaining the integrity and regulatory oversight of the existing financial ecosystem.” Sun added that corporates could use the connection to move liquidity between institutions, improve cash visibility and reduce complexity in cross-border transactions. Those benefits matter most outside normal operating windows, when a multinational group can see cash in several countries but cannot easily move it to the entity that needs it. Mark Willis, Head of Emerging Payments, Transaction Services and Digital Assets at Standard Chartered, said the transaction was an important step toward always-on financial services. He added that interoperable deposits could help corporate and institutional clients manage working capital and liquidity across markets. The next test is whether the orchestration layer can produce those gains once more banks, currencies and payment corridors are involved. Commercial adoption will require disclosed service levels, predictable settlement finality, common operating rules, legal recognition across jurisdictions and a clear method for resolving failed or mismatched transactions. For now, HSBC and Standard Chartered have shown that two separate tokenised-deposit systems can coordinate a live obligation through Swift. The transaction advances interoperability, but the last mile remains conventional, making continuous final settlement rather than blockchain messaging the harder benchmark still to be met.

In addition to money-market accounts and custody platforms, institutional investors have started using blockchain-based funds and vaults to manage cash, collateral, and short-duration yield.  Tokenized vaults enable institutions to put capital to work on the blockchain but still preserve settlement, auditing, and controls. Nevertheless, such an approach may not be feasible when assets such as private credits or government bonds require instant settlement. Real-world assets (RWAs) often need to be valued, verified, and sometimes settled off-chain. ERC-7540 addresses this gap by extending ERC-4626 with asynchronous deposit and redemption requests. This separates the investor's liquidity decision from the actual settlement event. Below are five vaults built on this model that institutions are already using to manage liquidity on-chain. Key Takeaways Asynchronous tokenized vaults separate deposit and redemption requests from settlement, making on-chain vaults more suitable for RWAs that require valuation or off-chain processing. Centrifuge focuses on tokenized RWAs, Midas on Treasury exposure, Maple on institutional credit, Superform on cross-chain strategies, and Lagoon on customizable tokenized funds. Institutions should compare redemption timelines, underlying assets, liquidity availability, compliance controls, and settlement mechanisms before selecting an asynchronous vault. 1. Centrifuge Centrifuge co-authored ERC-7540 and remains its most established production user. Its protocol supports both synchronous and asynchronous vault configurations. Asynchronous vaults use an AsyncRequestManager to handle asset purchases and redemptions that require approval, valuation, or off-chain settlement. Centrifuge is a framework that asset managers and issuers can use to structure pools containing credit, invoices, private funds, or other RWAs. The protocol now spans Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Plume, and BNB Chain. Mid-2026 partnerships with New York Life Investment Management and Kraken Institutional point to deeper ties with traditional asset managers. 2. Midas Using mTBILL, Midas is designed to track the performance of short-dated U.S. Treasury bills. Its token gives holders exposure to a BlackRock short-duration US Treasury fund, priced daily and issued under a base prospectus approved by Liechtenstein's FMA and passported across the EEA. Midas supports standard and instant redemption modes. Redemptions are processed through a request-based vault, where investors submit their redemptions, and they settle within two business days unless instant liquidity is available.  The vault is suitable for institutions seeking Treasury-linked exposure with on-chain settlement. However, investors must distinguish between the token’s underlying Treasury exposure and the liquidity of the redemption facility.  3. Maple Finance Its pools use tokenized LP positions and withdrawal managers to control how capital exits when most deposited assets are deployed into loans. Maple is designed for users seeking USDC-denominated yield while retaining a blockchain-based representation of their position. Investors must submit a redemption request. The relevant withdrawal mechanism then determines when the position can be settled. Most withdrawals are processed in less than 24 hours, though the maximum processing time is 30 days. Requests are handled on a first-in, first-out basis as liquidity becomes available, and the position continues to earn interest while waiting. It offers a transparent withdrawal process rather than an unconditional promise of instant liquidity. However, institutions should review borrower exposure, withdrawal capacity, custody arrangements, and the token’s legal treatment in their operating jurisdiction. 4. Superform Superform leverages ERC-7540 (SuperVault) to manage time-delayed cross-chain bridging states and batch requests cleanly, preventing capital from being trapped during multi-network rebalancing. It offers instant deposit settlement and asynchronous batch withdrawals. Superform’s design keeps gas costs down while opening access to RWAs, fixed-yield products, and other off-chain strategies. The platform also supports cross-chain deposits and automated strategy execution, making it useful for treasury managers operating across multiple networks.  5. Lagoon Finance Lagoon is an asynchronous ERC-7540 vault that provides infrastructure for asset managers to launch and operate tokenized investment strategies. Its stack includes vault deployment, net asset value (NAV) computation, access controls, fee management, and investor reporting.  Requests can be batched and settled at a defined NAV, keeping more capital deployed in the underlying strategy in the meantime. It is suitable for professional fund managers looking for customizable, multi-chain, tokenized fund infrastructure. Bottom Line The best asynchronous tokenized vaults for institutional liquidity management combine on-chain transparency with the delayed settlement that RWAs often require.  Centrifuge, Midas, Maple, Superform, and Lagoon use different approaches to manage delayed deposits, redemptions, Treasury exposure, credit, and cross-chain liquidity. For institutions, the strongest option depends on the underlying assets, settlement timeline, redemption structure, and level of control required. These vaults show how asynchronous infrastructure can bring traditional liquidity management closer to on-chain markets.  

Binance listed its first gold and silver perpetual futures in January and its first options on the same metals on July 29, with direct trading in more than 7,000 US-listed stocks and a tokenized securities product shipped in between. Legacy venues measure that kind of rollout in filing cycles. Binance measured it in months, and competitors are now racing the clock rather than the product. Seven Months, Four Markets Adding an asset class has traditionally been a governance exercise wearing a product costume. The calendar reflects committee cycles, rule filings and clearing dependencies. Almost none of it reflects engineering effort. A venue already running matching, risk and settlement for one asset class could in principle extend to another in weeks. Binance showed what is possible with an innovation and implementation plan that included full ADGM authorization in December 2025, gold and silver perpetuals in January 2026, ETF-linked perpetuals from March, direct stock and ETF trading with fractional purchases from $5 on June 1, tokenized securities on June 11, and commodity options on July 29. "We've seen strong demand for our commodity perpetuals since introducing them earlier this year, and commodity options build on that momentum," says Shunyet Jan, Head of Exchange and Trading at Binance. "With gold hitting record highs and investors seeking inflation hedges outside traditional equities, Binance's commodity options offer users additional compliant, crypto-native ways to diversify without leaving the platform." Migration, on this evidence, runs in both directions at once. Crypto venues took a contract structure they built for themselves and pointed it at metals and equities; the traditional venues are now trying to import the trading hours that made it work. Each launch on the Binance timeline also shortened the distance to the next one, because the account, the margin balance and the risk framework were already sitting there. By late July the traditional-finance perpetual lineup had reached 146 pairs, with 35 added in the preceding month alone. Trading leveraged perpetuals and options carries high market risk, and positions in both can expire worthless. The Curve That Kept Steepening ETF-linked perpetual futures crossed $116 billion in cumulative volume between January and July 2026, growing at an average 170% month over month, per Binance Research. In July the category accounted for 19% of all traditional-finance perpetual trading, and Binance's own share of it rose from 18% at the March launch to 74%. Total traditional-finance perpetual volume across those seven months exceeded $1.6 trillion, of which ETF products were 7.25%. Set against the market being referenced, that is a rounding error. Global ETF assets reached a record $23.09 trillion, with first-half 2026 turnover above $40 trillion, up 50% year on year, and a single-month record of $7.8 trillion in March, per industry figures cited in the same research. Which is the point, oddly enough. The argument for velocity rests on the slope, not the share. Going from nothing to $116 billion in seven months inside a market that turns over $7 trillion in a month measures how quickly a venue can stand a market up, not how much of one it has taken. The contract structure being exported here is also the one crypto already runs on. Pantera Capital, citing CryptoQuant, put 2025 perpetual volume across centralized exchanges at $62 trillion against roughly $19 trillion in spot. Venues are extending the instrument they know best rather than learning a new one. Why the Incumbents Are Slower, and Why It Is Not the Code The SEC approved Nasdaq's move toward 23-hour weekday trading in April 2026, as U.S. exchanges work toward extended overnight sessions. The New York Stock Exchange and Cboe Global Markets have announced comparable plans. Coinbase, coming at it from the crypto side, secured investment-services authorization from the UK Financial Conduct Authority to offer equities and derivatives alongside digital assets. But none of them are waiting on software. The DTCC is scheduled to roll out non-stop clearing for stocks by the end of 2026, and the securities information processor that publishes consolidated quotes has to be upgraded before any of it goes live. The crypto side is subject to the same constraint, which is the part that usually goes unmentioned. Binance's commodity options are issued through a separately recognized exchange entity rather than added to the core venue, which is precisely why a December 2025 license was the precondition for a July 2026 product. The prize explains the effort on both sides. US-listed companies account for almost two-thirds of global listed market value, and total foreign holdings of US equities reached $17 trillion, according to data compiled by Nasdaq. Speed Is a Licensing Question The map of where new markets appear first is being redrawn by who can obtain recognition faster rather than who can write code faster. That is a less flattering story for crypto than the shipping-cadence framing suggests, and a more useful one for anyone in traditional finance trying to work out how much time they actually have.

Stripe confirmed on August 19 that it would acquire OpenRouter, a startup that routes AI requests to whichever model is cheapest or best for the job, concluding the deal FinanceFeeds covered earlier this week. Beyond the headline, the real story is that Stripe was buying something more specific than an AI asset. It was buying a routing layer. A year earlier, Stripe had acquired Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure company. Put the two together and a pattern emerges: the payments giant is assembling both the new financial rails and the intelligence needed to navigate them. That combination is the real story in cross-border payments right now, and it is not the one the headlines usually tell. The common framing pits stablecoins against traditional banking rails in a fight one side eventually wins. The people building payment infrastructure describe something different, a future where both coexist, and where the hard problem, and the value, is deciding how money should move between them. Stablecoins Became Infrastructure While No One Was Looking The raw numbers around stablecoins are enormous and misleading. Reported stablecoin transactions run as high as $35 trillion a year, but most of that is trading, internal transfers, and automated on-chain activity, not payments for real goods and services. Strip those out, and a joint analysis by McKinsey and Artemis Analytics found that actual stablecoin payments in 2025 totaled $390 billion, a far smaller figure, and still just 0.02% of global payment volume. What matters is the shape of that $390 billion, not only its size. Business-to-business payments made up the largest share by a wide margin. [caption id="attachment_249064" align="alignnone" width="1800"] Real-world stablecoin payments in 2025 were led by business-to-business flows at $226 billion, far ahead of consumer categories. Source: McKinsey & Artemis Analytics · Chart: FinanceFeeds[/caption] B2B stablecoin payments reached roughly $226 billion, about 60% of all real-world stablecoin payment volume, and by some estimates that figure grew several times over year on year. The use case is unglamorous and exactly the kind that sticks: replacing slow, expensive correspondent-banking wires for international suppliers and invoices with near-instant settlement, and giving companies a faster way to manage cross-border treasury. Blockchain-based transfers can cut all-in transaction costs to a fraction of a percent, against the 2% to 7% that traditional wires can cost once fees, FX spreads, and intermediary charges are counted. The pool of value those payments draw on has grown just as quickly. The total stablecoin market capitalization now sits at about $301 billion, dominated by Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC. [caption id="attachment_249066" align="alignnone" width="2560"] The stablecoin market has grown to roughly $301 billion, with USDT and USDC accounting for the large majority. Source: DefiLlama [/caption] Investor Takeaway B2B is where stablecoins have actually become infrastructure, at roughly $226 billion or about 60% of real-world volume, driven by near-instant cross-border settlement replacing correspondent-banking wires. Not a Battle, a Coexistence The instinct to frame this as stablecoins versus banks misreads where the industry is heading, according to Vadim Drozd, CEO of the payment orchestration platform FinteqHub, which routes transactions across both fiat and crypto rails for merchants operating internationally. In his account, the obstacle to stablecoin payments is not the technology but everything around it: regulation remains fragmented, banks treat stablecoin transactions inconsistently, and adoption is still far from universal. Building a payment operation around stablecoins alone, he argues, swaps one set of operational and regulatory risks for another rather than removing them. The more likely future, in his view, is hybrid, stablecoins running alongside traditional currencies, banks, payment service providers, and local payment methods rather than replacing them. "The challenge will be deciding which rail to use, when and at what cost," Drozd said. That reframes the whole problem. If every rail survives, the advantage goes to whoever routes across them best. The Regulation Is Still Catching Up Drozd's point about fragmented rules is not abstract, and the past week made it concrete. On August 19, Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said the OCC now aims to finalize its GENIUS Act stablecoin rules by November, having missed the law's July statutory deadline, so it can begin processing issuer applications early next year. Two days earlier, the Treasury Department proposed its own rule defining when a stablecoin counts as issued or sold in the United States and what licensing that triggers. Those are steps toward clarity, but they also show how unsettled the ground still is more than a year after the GENIUS Act became law. Rules are arriving in pieces, across multiple agencies, on timelines that keep shifting, and the framework does not fully take effect until 2027. For a business trying to move money across borders today, that patchwork is exactly the kind of complexity that makes a single, hardcoded payment path fragile and a flexible one valuable. Where the Value Moves If rails proliferate and rules stay uneven, the orchestration layer, the software that sits above payment providers and routes each transaction, becomes the place where cost and reliability are won or lost. Drozd puts the potential savings high: intelligently routing transactions between fiat and stablecoin rails, he said, "can potentially reduce transaction costs by 75% or more," framing that as his firm's own estimate rather than an industry benchmark. Even discounted, the direction is clearly that the routing decision is where the money is. Today, that decision is mostly made by hand. Routing still tends to rely on static rules that payment teams maintain manually, even as provider fees, availability, limits, and performance shift constantly. The fix Drozd describes is to make routing dynamic, using machine learning to weigh those moving variables in real time and choose the best path for each transaction, an approach he says FinteqHub is already applying to its own transaction flows. This is where Stripe's two acquisitions stop looking like separate bets. Bridge gave Stripe stablecoin rails; OpenRouter gives it a proven engine for routing requests intelligently across many options. Stripe's own description of the OpenRouter deal, evaluating each request and sending it to the optimal destination based on price, speed, and reliability, reads almost exactly like the payment-routing problem Drozd describes, applied to AI models instead of payment rails. Both moves point at the same destination: infrastructure that does not just carry a transaction but decides, intelligently, how to carry it. PitchBook has pegged stablecoins and agentic payments as Stripe's two biggest priorities in emerging technology, and both run straight through that routing layer. Investor Takeaway As rails multiply and regulation stays uneven, the durable advantage shifts from owning any single rail to routing intelligently across all of them, which is the layer where cost and reliability are actually won. What Comes Next For Stablecoins The near-term trajectory, in Drozd's view, is that the routing work stops being manual. He expects algorithms to take over much of the routine routing over the next few years, with payment teams shifting from maintaining rules to higher-level decisions about which partners, markets, and traffic to prioritize. It is the same shift Stripe is buying its way into at a larger scale. None of this requires stablecoins to displace anything. It requires them to become one more rail among many, which the payments data suggests is already happening in B2B flows. The competitive question that follows is not which rail wins, but who builds the intelligence to move money across all of them. "The real opportunity lies in building the intelligence that decides how money should move between them," Drozd said. Stripe, with a stablecoin business and a routing engine now under one roof, appears to be betting on exactly that.

HM Revenue and Customs sent about 81,000 warning letters to cryptocurrency investors in the UK tax year ended 5 April 2026, according to new figures supplied by accountancy group UHY Hacker Young. That is roughly 25 percent more than the 64,982 letters documented in UHY's previous release based on HMRC data, and almost three times the roughly 27,700 sent in 2023 to 2024. The rise shows a larger compliance campaign, but the letters are not tax assessments and their recipients have not automatically been found to have evaded tax. The latest count extends the acceleration reported when HMRC sent nearly 65,000 crypto tax letters in the prior year. UHY says the notices give recipients a chance to check their affairs and disclose unpaid tax before a formal enquiry begins. The practical pressure will increase again in 2027, when the first reports collected under the UK's Cryptoasset Reporting Framework become due. A nudge letter normally means HMRC has information suggesting that a return may be missing or inaccurate. The data could come from a UK exchange, banking records or another source available to the department. It asks the taxpayer to review the relevant years and correct any omission. It does not, by itself, establish that tax is owed or prove deliberate evasion. That distinction matters because the supplied UHY release describes the letters as evidence of increased investigations. The figures measure compliance contacts, not opened investigations. HMRC may start an enquiry if a recipient does not respond or if the explanation does not resolve the mismatch, but a letter can also arise from incomplete information. Transfers between a person's own wallets, for example, may look like disposals in a platform export even though beneficial ownership did not change. Neela Chauhan, a partner at UHY Hacker Young, said younger traders may have limited experience dealing with HMRC and may assume the department cannot see their activity. She added: “The tax treatment of cryptocurrency in the UK is complex, and many individuals do not fully understand their reporting obligations or recognise when transactions give rise to taxable income or gains that must be disclosed to HMRC.” A Crypto Swap Can Create A Taxable Disposal The most common misunderstanding is that tax only arises when crypto is converted into pounds. HMRC's Cryptoassets Manual says a disposal includes selling tokens for money, exchanging one token for another, spending tokens on goods or services and most gifts. Moving the same asset between wallets that remain under the same beneficial owner is generally not a disposal. This means an exchange of bitcoin for ether can crystallise a capital gain even if no cash reaches a bank account. Each disposal must be valued in sterling at the transaction date, while acquisition costs and allowable fees must be tracked under the UK's pooling and matching rules. Fragmented records across centralised exchanges, self-custody wallets and decentralised protocols can turn that calculation into the hardest part of compliance. The earlier growth of crypto tax reconciliation tools addressed the same recordkeeping problem, although software output still depends on complete and correctly classified inputs. Income treatment is separate. HMRC says staking rewards are generally taxable as income when the activity is not itself a trade, with a later capital gains calculation if the received tokens are sold. Lending and decentralised finance arrangements require closer analysis because the contract can transfer beneficial ownership and trigger a disposal. Parliament has since moved toward a narrower no gain, no loss treatment for qualifying arrangements from April 2027, an approach covered in the new UK crypto lending tax rules. What Changes Under CARF In 2027 The 2027 timetable needs precision. UK reporting cryptoasset service providers began collecting reportable information on 1 January 2026. Under HMRC's current CARF guidance, their first report must be filed between 1 January and 31 May 2027 and cover the 2026 calendar year. Providers report identifying information and a summary of relevant transactions for users who are tax resident in the UK or another reportable jurisdiction. UHY says HMRC will start receiving full data from businesses in 52 jurisdictions on 31 May 2027, with another 15 jurisdictions following in 2028. The official material does not support treating 31 May as one universal receipt date for all overseas data. It is the UK filing deadline. Cross-border exchange is enabled through the OECD framework and depends on each jurisdiction's implementation, activated exchange relationships and reporting timetable. The OECD maintains the current signatory information, while HMRC directs providers to that live list rather than fixing the partner count in its guidance. The description of “full transaction records” also needs qualification. HMRC's published guidance says providers must report user details and a summary of transactions. The framework can give tax authorities acquisition and disposal totals by asset and transaction category, together with identifying data such as a name, address and tax identification number. A National Insurance number can serve as a UK tax identifier, but the rules do not mean every overseas platform will deliver a complete, trade-by-trade ledger for every customer on the same date. Even with those limits, the change materially improves matching. Earlier UK CARF reporting coverage explained how exchange data can be compared with tax returns. The broader international CARF rollout reduces the value of using an overseas exchange merely to avoid domestic visibility. UK residence, rather than the location of an exchange or bank account, generally determines the scope of UK tax on worldwide income and gains. Penalty Claims Need More Nuance UHY's release says penalties are capped at 30 percent of unpaid tax when an investor approaches HMRC first, rising to 70 to 100 percent after HMRC makes contact. Those are not universal bands. HMRC's standard inaccuracy penalty table sets unprompted ranges of zero to 30 percent for careless errors, 20 to 70 percent for deliberate errors and 30 to 100 percent for deliberate and concealed errors. Prompted ranges are 15 to 30 percent, 35 to 70 percent and 50 to 100 percent respectively. Higher ranges may apply to some offshore matters, while no inaccuracy penalty is due where reasonable care was taken. Interest and late-payment charges can be separate. A recipient therefore cannot infer a likely penalty from whether a nudge letter has arrived alone. Conduct, the tax year, the type of failure, the quality of disclosure and the location of the underlying matter all affect the result. HMRC operates a dedicated cryptoasset disclosure service for unpaid capital gains tax or income tax. A disclosure does not replace current filing obligations, and someone who has received a letter should follow its response instructions. Taxpayers also need transaction histories, sterling values, fees, wallet transfers, income receipts and evidence supporting their cost basis before submitting a calculation. Why The Letter Count Matters The increase from about 27,700 letters to nearly 65,000 and then roughly 81,000 in two years shows that crypto compliance is moving from occasional outreach toward repeatable data matching. CARF adds a wider reporting channel, but it will not calculate a taxpayer's final bill. HMRC will still need to distinguish taxable disposals from internal transfers, apply losses and pooling rules, and decide whether returns from staking or lending are income or capital. For investors, the useful deadline is earlier than the first 2027 reports. Records for 2026 are already being collected, and corrections become harder once HMRC has indicated that it has found a discrepancy. The safest reading of the 81,000 letters is therefore neither that 81,000 people evaded tax nor that an automated system can settle every case. It is that HMRC is contacting more crypto users now, before domestic and international reporting gives it a broader set of figures to compare.

Key Facts MemeCore principals will contribute US$1.0bn of $M tokens to Nasdaq-listed ZeroStack Corp. In exchange they receive 3,500,000 ZeroStack shares plus pre-funded warrants over up to 36,198,293 more. The 925,925,926 tokens are valued at US$1.08 each, their prevailing fair market trading price. Warrants carry an agreed value of US$25.19 per share — over twelve times ZeroStack's recent trading price. Warrant shares require shareholder approval under Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635 and a lock-up of up to ten years. MemeCore has announced a strategic transaction that routes its native token onto a US public company's balance sheet. Puple AI Inc. and Blockcat Pte. Ltd., principals of the MemeCore ecosystem, have agreed to contribute an aggregate US$1.0bn worth of MemeCore ($M) tokens to Nasdaq-listed ZeroStack Corp in return for equity. The consideration is 3,500,000 shares of ZeroStack common stock plus pre-funded warrants to purchase up to 36,198,293 additional shares. The token side comprises 925,925,926 $M, valued at their prevailing fair market trading price of US$1.08 per token. The warrant terms are the unusual part The pre-funded warrants carry an agreed value of US$25.19 per share, which the parties describe as a premium of more than twelve times ZeroStack's recent market trading price. Those shares are not issued at closing: they require ZeroStack shareholder approval under Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635, and are subject to a lock-up of up to ten years afterwards. That structure keeps the dilution gated and the exit distant — the mechanism by which a token contribution of this size can sit on a listed balance sheet without immediately reordering the share register. What ZeroStack is ZeroStack provides public-market exposure to decentralised AI infrastructure and currently holds strategic exposure to the 0G ecosystem. It also runs a global pharmaceutical distribution business through its wholly owned subsidiary, Phatebo GmbH. Rudy Rong, a MemeCore principal, is being appointed President of ZeroStack in connection with the transaction. "By connecting MemeCore with decentralized AI, public markets and institutional capital, we believe we can create entirely new opportunities for ecosystem growth and global participation," Rong said. "This is not simply about an investment. It is about building a bridge between two rapidly evolving ecosystems." Daniel Reis-Faria, Chief Executive Officer of ZeroStack, said the deal is "a defining milestone not only for ZeroStack, but for the broader digital asset industry", adding that combining the existing 0G holdings with a MemeCore position "creates a compelling platform capable of generating long-term value for shareholders". A treasury structure the market is still pricing The transaction lands in a category that has expanded quickly and is now attracting structural scrutiny. Listed digital asset treasury companies have moved well beyond bitcoin: Nasdaq-listed Reliance Global converted its entire crypto treasury into Zcash in November 2025, one of several firms rotating into single-asset positions. Index treatment is the open question for the model. In June 2026, MSCI deferred a decision on excluding companies whose digital assets exceed 50% of total assets from its global equity indexes — preserving Strategy's place while freezing its weighting. Any listed vehicle taking on a token position of scale now does so against an unresolved question about how equity benchmarks will classify it. What happens next MemeCore, a Layer 1 blockchain built to turn internet memes into sustainable cultural and economic ecosystems, and ZeroStack say they intend to explore ecosystem collaboration, technology integration and broader institutional participation following the transaction. Risk warning. The transaction is subject to the terms of the definitive documents, and warrant shares will not be issued unless shareholder approval is obtained under Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635. Statements about expected collaboration and anticipated benefits are forward-looking, are not guarantees of future performance, and involve risks that could cause actual outcomes to differ materially. Readers should refer to ZeroStack's filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for complete terms and risk factors. Frequently asked questions What exactly is being exchanged? 925,925,926 MemeCore ($M) tokens worth US$1.0bn, for 3,500,000 ZeroStack shares and pre-funded warrants over up to 36,198,293 further shares. When do the warrant shares get issued? Only after ZeroStack shareholders approve the issuance under Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635, with a lock-up of up to ten years following closing. Does MemeCore itself list on Nasdaq? No. Its principals take an equity position in an already-listed company; the $M token is not itself listed.

For years, broker acquisition has been built around a handful of easy-to-track numbers: leads generated, cost per lead, cost per acquisition and, above all, first-time deposits. But those metrics can say surprisingly little about whether a newly acquired trader will remain active, trade sustainably or ultimately generate long-term value for the business. A large first deposit may look attractive on a dashboard, yet it can quickly become meaningless if the client withdraws, stops trading or disappears after a few days. That is pushing the definition of a “quality client” further down the funnel. Retention, second and third deposits, trading behaviour, suitability, documentation quality and the economics of each acquisition channel are increasingly important indicators of whether growth is sustainable. TMGM’s Nick Haring argues that second-deposit rates and 90-day retention can reveal more about channel health than top-of-funnel acquisition metrics, while Pearl Lemon Accountants CEO Deepak Shukla points to responsible financial behaviour, accurate documentation and continued engagement as stronger signs of long-term value. Together, their views suggest that the real challenge for brokers is no longer simply acquiring more funded accounts, but identifying which clients are worth acquiring in the first place. TMGM on Why First Deposits Are a Weak Test of Client Quality Nick Haring, Partnership Manager at TMGM, argues that brokers should not confuse early funding with client quality. “Deposit size and first trade get you excited on day one,” Haring says, “but they don’t define quality on their own.” For TMGM, the better test is whether the client fits the product, trades sustainably, and remains active long enough to create risk-adjusted value. “A quality client is someone whose risk profile genuinely matches the product,” Haring explains, “who funds an account they can afford to trade with, who trades with some consistency rather than one manic session, and who sticks around long enough to become profitable for the business on a risk-adjusted basis.” That makes client quality a blend of suitability, behaviour, retention, and long-term revenue. “Suitability first, then behavioral signals, login frequency, trade frequency, deposit-to-withdrawal pattern, then retention, and only then lifetime revenue,” Haring adds. “Any one of those in isolation is misleading.” He believes the industry has leaned too heavily on FTD because it is easy to measure and easy to pay against. “Yes, structurally so,” Haring says when asked whether brokers have become too focused on lead volume and first deposits. “FTD is easy to measure, easy to report up the chain, and easy to pay affiliates against — so it became the default currency of the industry even though it’s a limited proxy for value.” Why Cheap Traffic Can Become Expensive Haring sees several early warning signs when an acquisition channel is bringing weak traffic. “High FTD-to-second-deposit drop-off, deposits clustering right at minimum thresholds, near-zero trading activity post-funding, disproportionate use of welcome bonuses, high early withdrawal rates, and support tickets that reveal the client didn’t understand what they signed up for,” he says. Cheap top-of-funnel traffic, in his view, can quickly become costly once compliance and onboarding costs are included. “A channel with cheap CPL but a 90%+ 30-day churn rate isn’t cheap,” Haring warns. “It’s expensive once you account for compliance and onboarding cost per client.” That is why TMGM evaluates each channel on what it is likely to produce after funding, not only how many accounts it generates. “Affiliates/media buyers [are] judged on cohort retention and durability, not just FTD count,” Haring notes, because many are optimising for volume. IB traffic is assessed differently. “IBs [are] judged on the quality of their client base and trading education,” Haring says, “since a good IB pre-qualifies clients before they even reach you.” Paid search often brings stronger intent but at a higher cost. Social and influencer traffic varies more widely. “A finfluencer’s audience quality mirrors the influencer’s own credibility and content style,” Haring says. “Education-led content brings more sustainable traders than hype-led content.” Organic and referral traffic, by contrast, often starts with a stronger trust base. “Organic/referral [is] typically the strongest quality signal,” Haring adds, “since it’s driven by existing client trust rather than ad spend incentive.” Second Deposits and 90-Day Retention Matter More Than CPL Beyond CPL, CPA, and FTD, Haring points to the metrics that show whether a client relationship is becoming durable. “Second and third deposit rate, 30/60/90-day active trading ratio, average client lifespan, net deposit over time, rebate/spread revenue per active client, churn by cohort and by channel, and complaint or suitability-flag rate,” he says. If brokers need to choose only a few, he puts second deposits and retention at the top. “If you can only pick a few: second deposit rate and 90-day retention tell you more about channel health than anything at the top of the funnel.” Haring sees more advanced brokers moving in that direction. “Among more sophisticated brokers like TMGM, yes,” he says when asked whether firms are placing more weight on lifetime value, retention, and post-onboarding behaviour. Part of this comes from maturity, part from regulation, and part from rising acquisition costs. “The brokers still growing sustainably are the ones that shifted partner comp models toward rebate-models,” Haring adds, “which naturally forces everyone up the chain to care about retention.” Haring believes brokers can often identify serious and suitable clients within the first few days. “Often within the first 48–72 hours,” he says. The early tells come from how the client completes onboarding, funds the account, and approaches the first trade. “Completion quality of the KYC/appropriateness questionnaire, funding method, size and timing of first deposit relative to stated income/experience, and whether the first trade is a considered position or an impulsive bet are all early tells.” He sees stronger long-term potential in clients who behave deliberately. “Placing more than one trade with reasonable position sizing, using risk management tools rather than trading naked, logging in more than once, engaging with educational or platform content,” Haring says, are among the first behaviours that matter. The way clients ask questions also matters. “Clients who ask questions before their first trade tend to outlast clients who trade within minutes of funding.” Bonus-Driven Clients Need Better Segmentation Haring argues that brokers need to combine source, funding behaviour, and early trading pattern rather than rely on one metric. “Segment on acquisition source, funding behavior, and early trading pattern together rather than any single variable,” he says. A useful early filter, in his view, can combine deposit-to-income ratio, trade frequency, product mix, and bonus usage. “Bonus-driven users cluster heavily around specific promotional triggers and might disappear once the bonus terms are met,” Haring notes. “That pattern alone is one of the most useful segmentation signals available.” On AI, Haring sees a mixed market. Larger brokers are already using more advanced models, while many smaller firms remain far behind. “Both, honestly,” he says. “Larger, better-capitalized brokers are using predictive churn and LTV models, dynamic partner scoring, and also AI-assisted suitability review.” Smaller and mid-market brokers often still rely on manual analysis. “A large share of mid-market and smaller brokers still relies on spreadsheets and gut-feel channel evaluation,” Haring says, “essentially hoping for the best while trying to grow.” Haring warns that acquisition teams respond directly to how they are measured. “Yes, when KPIs are solely quantity-weighted rather than quality-weighted,” he says. “Sales and partnership teams respond to what they’re measured on.” If the target is simply new funded accounts, firms may loosen standards. “If the target is ‘new funded accounts this month,’ the natural response is to relax scrutiny at the margin.” The answer, in his view, is not to remove volume targets but to balance them with quality. “The fix isn’t removing volume targets,” Haring adds. “It’s pairing them with a retention or suitability-adjusted target.” He also rejects the idea that client quality is inherently tied to nationality. “It’s mostly channel mix, regulatory environment, and financial literacy rather than anything inherent to a region,” Haring says. The same client profile can behave differently depending on how it arrived. “The same nationality behaves very differently depending on which channel brought them in.” Broker Incentives Need to Reward Retention To reduce dependence on weak affiliate traffic, Haring advises brokers to change how partners are rewarded. “Align incentives with retention,” he says. That includes investing in owned organic and content channels, ranking affiliates by cohort quality rather than raw volume, and rewarding the strongest partners more heavily. “Be willing to let go of low-quality partners even when it dents short-term numbers,” Haring adds. For him, growth does not always require more leads. “Growth doesn’t have to come from more leads,” he says. “It can come from better retention of the leads you already have, which lowers the acquisition burden overall.” Brokers that want better clients should stop rewarding the wrong behaviour. “Tie CPA to client behavior, stop over-indexing marketing spend on bonus-driven promotions, stop measuring partnership success purely on FTD count, and stop treating suitability checks as a compliance box-tick rather than a genuine filter,” Haring says. He also argues that friction is not always bad. “Onboarding flows optimized purely to minimize friction” can remove useful checks, he notes. “Some friction, proper appropriateness questions, realistic risk disclosure, is doing useful filtering work.” His final advice is to build from experience rather than chase every trend. “Build on your experience rather than reacting to every opinion or buzzword,” Haring says. “Stay focused, remain stoic, and execute with conviction.” The most important fix is incentive design. “Align your incentive structure with long-term client retention,” Haring concludes. “Fix the incentive, and the behavior of your whole acquisition ecosystem follows.” Pearl Lemon Accountants on Why Financial Discipline Defines Client Quality Deepak Shukla, CEO of Pearl Lemon Accountants, views client quality through the lens of financial sustainability, documentation, and compliance. “From our perspective, a quality client is not simply someone who makes a first deposit,” Shukla says. Because Pearl Lemon Accountants works with crypto traders, digital asset businesses, cross-border companies, and clients handling multi-currency finances, Shukla looks beyond early account funding. “In most cases, the best clients are responsible traders who maintain proper financial documentation and know how to pay taxes on their earnings,” he explains. For Shukla, that makes long-term client quality less about initial transaction size and more about whether the client can manage the financial duties that come with trading. Acquisition Numbers Only Tell Part of the Story Shukla agrees that brokers are placing more weight on lifetime value, retention, and post-onboarding behaviour. “We believe that’s right,” he says. “Numbers in acquisitions only give partial information.” The stronger clients, in his view, are the ones who remain active while also improving their trading and compliance habits. “Those customers who continue using the platform, comply, and develop their trading skills are the ones who bring long-term value.” That puts client quality closer to financial maturity than early funnel performance alone. Shukla points to the first few days after onboarding as a useful window into client intent. “From what we see, clients who complete verification promptly, provide accurate documentation, ask informed questions and show an understanding of their financial responsibilities are often the ones who remain active over the longer term.” That behaviour gives brokers more context than a deposit alone. A client who completes verification properly and asks informed questions is showing a different level of intent from someone driven only by a promotion or short-term market move. Shukla also argues that segmentation should account for responsible financial behaviour. “It helps to look beyond the size of an initial deposit,” he says. The better indicators are ongoing activity and the quality of the client’s financial footprint. “Ongoing engagement, account activity, documentation quality and responsible financial behaviour provide a much better indication of whether someone is likely to become a long-term client.” Client Value Is Measured Over Months, Not Days Shukla’s advice to brokers is to avoid judging client quality too quickly. “Success is measured over many months rather than days,” he says. He warns that large early deposits can be misleading if the client disappears soon after. “Many clients who stay engaged and have good financial management practices prove to be much more valuable than clients who initially put in a lot of money and vanish after just one week.” For Shukla, better acquisition funnels should be built around financial responsibility, clear documentation, and longer-term engagement rather than early funding alone.  

Why Does Injective’s SEC Registration Matter? Injective has added a regulated securities function to its blockchain infrastructure after affiliate Injective Institutional Services became registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a transfer agent. The registration allows the firm to maintain official ownership records and process transfers for tokenized securities, bringing a function traditionally handled by financial intermediaries into its onchain infrastructure. Transfer agents maintain records showing who legally owns a security, update those records when ownership changes and support functions including distributions and corporate actions. For tokenized securities, that role is particularly important because a blockchain record alone does not automatically replace the regulated infrastructure used to establish and administer legal ownership. Injective said the registration gives it a framework for supporting securities ownership and transfer records alongside blockchain-based settlement. The company is combining the transfer agent function with Injective Mint, its tokenization platform for issuing assets with controls covering eligible holders, jurisdictions, minting, redemptions, address freezes and transfer restrictions. Injective described itself as the first Layer 1 blockchain to assemble this combination of tokenization infrastructure and U.S. transfer agent capabilities. That is the company’s characterization rather than an SEC designation of the blockchain itself. How Does A Transfer Agent Fit Into Tokenized Markets? Much of the competition in real-world asset tokenization has focused on putting stocks, funds, private credit and other financial instruments on blockchains. Injective is targeting a less visible part of the process: the infrastructure that keeps authoritative ownership records after those assets have been issued. That could matter as tokenization moves from experimental products toward securities intended for institutional use. Issuers need more than the ability to create tokens. They also need systems for restricting transfers, administering ownership changes, handling corporate actions and meeting securities law requirements. Injective Institutional Services can now provide that regulated recordkeeping function while Injective’s blockchain handles programmable settlement and financial applications. The company said the registration became effective after it filed with the SEC in July, turning the earlier application into an operational regulatory capability. The approach could reduce the gap between token issuance and the back-office processes used in conventional securities markets. Whether institutions adopt that infrastructure at scale will depend on issuers, custodians, broker-dealers and other regulated firms being willing to integrate with blockchain-based systems. Investor Takeaway Injective is moving beyond tokenized asset trading and into the regulated infrastructure that determines ownership. If tokenization gains institutional adoption, transfer-agent services could become an important bridge between blockchain settlement and existing U.S. securities requirements. How Does This Expand Injective’s RWA Strategy? The registration builds on Injective’s expansion into tokenized financial products. The network has developed markets tied to public equities, institutional funds, private-market assets and other real-world assets, while its tokenization infrastructure is designed to enforce compliance controls directly at the protocol level. Injective also launched pre-IPO perpetual futures last year, offering price exposure to private companies including OpenAI. The transfer-agent registration takes the project closer to regulated securities infrastructure rather than simply providing derivatives or synthetic exposure to traditional assets. The distinction is important. Trading products can provide economic exposure without transferring legal ownership of an underlying security. A registered transfer agent, by comparison, plays a formal role in maintaining the records used to determine who owns securities and how those holdings change. That gives Injective another route into the institutional tokenization market as traditional financial firms experiment with blockchain-based issuance and settlement. Rather than competing only on transaction speed or token issuance, the network is trying to combine those functions with infrastructure that regulated issuers already require. Why Did INJ Rise After The Announcement? Injective’s native INJ token traded about 8% higher on Wednesday following the announcement, giving the asset a market capitalization of roughly $450 million during the session. Market data continued to place INJ’s capitalization around that level as investors assessed the regulatory development. The reaction reflects expectations that regulated tokenization infrastructure could increase institutional use of the Injective network. INJ is used across the ecosystem for transaction fees, staking and governance, meaning greater network activity could strengthen demand for the token, although registration of an affiliated transfer agent does not guarantee higher usage or revenue. The larger test will be whether securities issuers actually choose Injective to manage tokenized assets. Regulatory registration gives the network access to another part of the securities infrastructure stack, but adoption will ultimately depend on the amount and quality of assets brought onchain, institutional participation and whether blockchain-based settlement can compete with established financial-market systems.

US Treasury buybacks sank long-term yields and weakened the dollar, while hawkish Fed minutes and Middle East tensions moved commodities. US Treasury Expands Longer-Dated Debt Buybacks to Support Market Liquidity The United States Department of the Treasury has announced a decisive maneuver to intervene in the long end of the yield curve by doubling the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations for longer-dated nominal coupon securities. Beginning September 9 and running through November 4, operations targeting maturities spanning 10 to 20 years and 20 to 30 years will scale up from $2 billion to at least $4 billion. While this policy shift rearranges the maturity structure of government debt rather than shrinking its overall volume, it acts as a form of fiscal accommodation that investors have quickly seized upon. By attempting to contain soaring long-term borrowing costs—amid a staggering fiscal deficit and massive national debt interest expenses—the Treasury's actions have triggered a sharp compression in long-term yields, sending shockwaves through equity indices like the Dow Jones and triggering a broad sell-off in the US Dollar. FOMC July Minutes Reveal Internal Dissent Amid Changing Macroeconomic Data The Federal Open Market Committee published the minutes from its July policy meeting, laying bare a rare fracture within the central bank as three regional presidents—Lorie Logan, Beth Hammack, and Neel Kashkari—voted against a policy hold in favor of a 25-basis-point rate increase. The record reflects a committee deeply concerned that inflation remained elevated across both goods and services, with many participants arguing that further monetary tightening would likely become necessary if price pressures failed to recede. Yet, financial markets largely shrugged off the hawkish tone as backward-looking. Subsequent economic releases pointing toward moderating inflation and a softening labor market have sharply altered the economic landscape since the July gathering, lowering market probabilities for a September rate hike and leaving investors focused instead on incoming data and upcoming central bank commentary at Jackson Hole. Geopolitical Standoffs and Falling Yields Fuel Commodity Rallies Commodity markets experienced dramatic upward momentum as a weaker US Dollar and tumbling Treasury yields converged with persistent geopolitical friction. Gold prices soared toward the $4,500 per troy ounce threshold, heavily benefiting from a tumbling greenback and plunging long-term yields that reduced the opportunity cost of holding the non-yielding safe-haven asset. Concurrently, West Texas Intermediate crude oil held firm near three-week highs, underpinned by simmering supply anxieties. The expiration of the US-Iran memorandum of understanding regarding the Strait of Hormuz, paired with stagnant diplomatic talks and a naval blockade, left actual maritime shipping severely constrained despite rising domestic US crude inventories. Together, these macroeconomic and geopolitical forces created an environment where precious metals and energy assets thrived amidst overarching financial market uncertainty. Top upcoming economic events: 08/20/2026 01:15:00 — PBoC Interest Rate Decision: This is a critical monetary policy event for China (CNY) that sets base lending benchmarks, directly influencing domestic economic growth, industrial demand, and broader emerging market sentiment. 08/20/2026 01:30:00 — Unemployment Rate s.a. (and Employment Change): Published for Australia (AUD), this high-impact labor market data is a primary input for the Reserve Bank of Australia when evaluating domestic economic health and future interest rate trajectories. 08/20/2026 12:30:00 — Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Survey: This medium-impact US release provides a regional snapshot of manufacturing health in the key Philadelphia district, offering early insights into broader national industrial conditions. 08/20/2026 15:10:00 — Fed's Musalem speech: A scheduled public address by Federal Reserve official Alberto Musalem that allows investors to gauge internal central bank sentiment and policy perspectives following recent inflation and labor metrics. 08/20/2026 23:30:00 — National Consumer Price Index (YoY): This headline inflation release for Japan (JPY) dictates whether price growth is meeting official targets, shaping the Bank of Japan's path toward future normalization or policy adjustments. 08/21/2026 06:00:00 — Retail Sales (MoM): A high-impact metric tracking consumer spending behavior across the UK economy (GBP), serving as a core gauge of household resilience and broader economic momentum. 08/21/2026 07:30:00 — HCOB Composite PMI (and Manufacturing/Services PMIs): This high-impact survey captures preliminary business activity and economic health across the Eurozone (EUR), heavily influencing regional currency valuations. 08/21/2026 08:30:00 — S&P Global Composite PMI (and Manufacturing/Services PMIs): A high-impact reading providing a comprehensive view of private sector business conditions across the United Kingdom (GBP), tracking both manufacturing and services output. 08/21/2026 13:45:00 — S&P Global Manufacturing PMI (and Services PMIs): This high-impact US release measures output, new orders, and employment in the industrial sector, acting as a crucial indicator for US economic momentum. 08/21/2026 19:30:00 — CFTC Gold NC Net Positions: Part of the weekly Commitments of Traders report, this data tracks speculative positioning in gold futures, giving analysts insight into institutional sentiment toward safe-haven assets.  The subject matter and the content of this article are solely the views of the author. FinanceFeeds does not bear any legal responsibility for the content of this article and they do not reflect the viewpoint of FinanceFeeds or its editorial staff. The information does not constitute advice or a recommendation on any course of action and does not take into account your personal circumstances, financial situation, or individual needs. We strongly recommend you seek independent professional advice or conduct your own independent research before acting upon any information contained in this article.

Why Did The FCA Fine Demetrios Hadjigeorgiou? The Financial Conduct Authority has banned former SVS Securities Plc chief executive Demetrios Hadjigeorgiou from holding senior management or significant influence functions in UK financial services and fined him £56,400, closing his part of an enforcement case linked to the investment firm’s 2019 collapse. Hadjigeorgiou had challenged an April 2024 decision that proposed an £84,600 penalty and referred the case to the Upper Tribunal. He later settled with the FCA and withdrew the referral. The regulator said its factual findings did not change, but it reclassified his conduct relating to a 10% markdown on customers’ fixed-income investments from an integrity breach to a failure to exercise due skill, care and diligence. That reduced the final penalty to £56,400. Hadjigeorgiou was a director of SVS before becoming chief executive in May 2018. The FCA ordered the company to stop regulated activities on August 2, 2019, and SVS entered special administration three days later. It was dissolved in August 2023. How Did SVS Make Money From Customers’ Pension Investments? The FCA’s case centered on four model portfolios used by retail customers, many of whom transferred pension savings into self-invested personal pensions before investing through SVS. Around 879 customers put roughly £69 million into the portfolios, with about 63% allocated to fixed-income products. The regulator found that SVS operated a commission-driven model that directed customer money into high-risk, illiquid fixed-income products connected to people associated with the firm or its business partners. Bond operators paid SVS commissions of up to 12% of customer investments, while unauthorised introducers received commissions of between 7% and 9% for directing clients into the portfolios. Hadjigeorgiou was also central to SVS’s decision to invest customer money in a bond issued by Innovation Capital Finance Limited. SVS agreed to invest £10 million and receive £1 million in commission, taking £750,000 upfront while experiencing liquidity and cash-flow problems. The payment was received before due diligence had been completed and was accounted for as a loan. The FCA said Hadjigeorgiou failed to ensure that the resulting conflict was properly managed and did not adequately respond to earlier regulatory concerns over due diligence and concentration risk. He also failed to ensure SVS stopped accepting prohibited commissions from investment providers after relevant inducement rules took effect in January 2018. Investor Takeaway The SVS case shows how commission structures can create direct conflicts when a discretionary manager decides where customer money is invested. For the FCA, senior managers remain responsible for challenging those arrangements even when compliance and investment decisions involve other executives. How Did The 10% Markdown Cost Pension Customers? Another part of the enforcement case involved SVS’s treatment of customers who wanted to leave fixed-income investments. While the company was under financial pressure, its board introduced a 10% markdown on the valuation of fixed-income assets when customers disinvested from the model portfolios. The FCA said Hadjigeorgiou did not consider the markdown the fairest way to charge customers and knew members of the portfolio team had raised concerns. He nevertheless failed to challenge the proposal sufficiently. SVS generated £359,800 from the markdown, while customers were not properly informed of its financial effect and some lost part of their pension savings. The 2024 decision treated that conduct partly as a failure to act with integrity. Following further consideration and Hadjigeorgiou’s settlement, the FCA classified it instead under Statement of Principle 6, covering due skill, care and diligence. No settlement discount was applied to the resulting £56,400 penalty. What Remains Of The Wider SVS Enforcement Case? The FCA originally pursued three senior figures. Former chief executive and majority shareholder Kulvir Virk was fined £215,500 and banned from regulated financial services functions. Former compliance head David Stephen faced a proposed £52,100 fine and senior management ban, but his referral to the Upper Tribunal means the findings concerning him remain subject to the tribunal process. Virk later faced action in Dubai. In December 2025, the Dubai Financial Services Authority barred him from performing any function connected with financial services in or from the Dubai International Financial Centre after learning that he had been involved in the management of a DFSA-authorised firm despite the FCA action. The customer fallout has continued well beyond SVS’s closure. Around 18,000 former clients had money and assets transferred to ITI Capital, while the Financial Services Compensation Scheme covered eligible special administration costs and continued assessing separate claims connected with SVS’s investment and pension activities. Hadjigeorgiou’s settlement removes another unresolved branch of the case nearly seven years after SVS entered special administration. His prohibition is limited to senior management and significant influence functions rather than all financial services employment, but the FCA’s final notice leaves the underlying findings on conflicts, due diligence, commissions and customer treatment intact.