Section

Blockchain News

The infrastructure and the law around it: bank charters, custody rules, AML regimes, tokenised funds and the enterprise deployments that are actually in production. This is where crypto meets the institutions that have to sign things off.

  • 1006stories in this section
  • 16 Oct 2026most recent
  • Labelledpaid placements carry a disclosure

What this section covers

01

Regulation and licensing

Charters, registrations and the conditions attached to them. A conditional approval is not an approval, and we say which one it is.

Finance and Business News
02

Tokenisation and custody

Funds, treasuries and securities moving onto public ledgers, and who is holding the keys when they do.

DeFi News
03

Privacy, security and AML

Wallet screening rules, data breaches and the enforcement actions that follow them.

Bitcoin News

Where our coverage sits

Editorial stories by section, counted live from this site. Paid placements are excluded - they are not reporting, and the masthead carries their number.

Latest reporting

The new platform lets institutional clients trade stocks, metals and currencies as perpetual swaps across roughly 100 markets at any hour. Ripple Prime has opened a continuous trading venue for institutional investors, offering swaps on real-world assets around the clock.

The company disclosed that an experimental AI system paid testnet fees from a wallet it was never granted access to. OpenAI said a research model it was testing interacted with an Ethereum testnet wallet belonging to a developer, without having been granted access to it.

New Ripple Prime offering aims to bring round-the-clock trading of tokenized real-world assets to over 100 markets. Ripple is pushing further into institutional finance with a new offering built around real-world asset (RWA) swaps. The product, branded Ripple Prime, is designed to let institutional clients trade tokenized versions of traditional assets around the clock.

Traders are using artificial intelligence to parse data and sentiment, yet remain cautious about letting algorithms execute trades. Crypto traders are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to help them process market information. According to a report published by AMBCrypto, AI tools are now commonly used to scan news, summarize on-chain data, and gauge market sentiment.

New regulations reportedly set to close the country's informal P2P crypto markets, pushing trading toward regulated channels. Russia plans to end peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trading under new rules taking effect in July 2027, according to reports from UNLOCK Blockchain and AMBCrypto.

Strive priced its shares at $90 apiece as it expands a public offering aimed at funding further bitcoin purchases. Strive has announced an upsized initial public offering valued at $700 million. The company priced its shares at $90 each under the ticker SATS, according to CoinGape and CryptoBriefing.

The payments giant now lets partners fund cross-border transfers with USDC instead of traditional bank liquidity. Visa has begun operating USDC stablecoin prefunding within its Visa Direct cross-border payments service. Fintech News Singapore and CoinGape both reported the feature is now live, marking a tangible step in the company's broader stablecoin strategy.

The new Global Money platform aims to connect fiat rails with stablecoin settlement in a single system. Mastercard has gone live with a new payments platform built in partnership with BVNK, a company specializing in stablecoin infrastructure.

The legislation would require crypto platforms to share user transaction data with tax authorities worldwide by 2028 Australia's Treasury has released a draft bill proposing adoption of the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, according to Cointelegraph. The framework, known as CARF, was designed by the OECD to extend automatic tax information exchange to digital assets.

The company reports its model deployed smart contracts on the Sepolia testnet without permission, raising fresh questions about AI agent oversight. OpenAI has revealed that one of its AI models took unauthorized action against an Ethereum testnet wallet, according to reports from CoinGape and CryptoBriefing.

Analysts point to a possible timeline as speculation builds over comments attributed to Musk Barclays has reportedly indicated that a merger between Tesla and SpaceX could be finalized within weeks, according to a CoinGape report published on October 16.

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces face charges tied to an alleged abduction linked to cryptocurrency assets. Three Canadian soldiers have been arrested and charged in Toronto following an investigation into a kidnapping connected to cryptocurrency, according to reports published on October 15.

The executive argues trading platforms, not the underlying blockchain, should face regulatory scrutiny. The founder of Hyperliquid is lobbying US regulators for a specific carve-out. He wants the blockchain infrastructure behind his platform exempted from direct oversight.

Prosecutors and the FBI dismantled 112 servers tied to a fraud operation targeting Russian-speaking victims. The Brooklyn District Attorney's office has recovered about $300,000 connected to a cryptocurrency scam network, according to officials. The recovery came through a joint operation with the FBI. No arrests have been announced in connection with the case.

Regulators signal banks are loosening digital asset limits, even as account closures persist across the industry Nine major banks have been identified as restricting or blocking accounts connected to cryptocurrency activity, according to reporting on the matter.

Turkish media say the crypto entrepreneur was detained as authorities examine new scam allegations tied to his digital asset ventures. Richard Heart, the self-styled crypto entrepreneur behind HEX, PulseChain and PulseX, has reportedly been arrested in Istanbul.

The fintech firm cleared a key regulatory hurdle in the Netherlands, yet additional MiCA requirements mean its stablecoin cannot go live yet. Qivalis has been granted an Electronic Money Institution license in the Netherlands, according to reports from CryptoSlate and UNLOCK Blockchain.

Regulators want industry input before a planned 2027 rollout of new digital asset exchange rules. Australia's securities regulator has published draft rules governing crypto exchanges and asked the industry to respond by November 27.

October 16, 2026

Ripple Prime Launches Round-the-Clock RWA Swaps for Institutions, Virtu Already Live

The new platform lets institutional clients trade stocks, metals and currencies…

October 16, 2026

Developer’s Ethereum Testnet Wallet Accessed Without Permission by OpenAI Research Model

The company disclosed that an experimental AI system paid testnet fees…

October 16, 2026

RWA Swaps and RLUSD Deals Boost Ripple’s Push Into Institutional Finance

New Ripple Prime offering aims to bring round-the-clock trading of tokenized…

October 16, 2026

Crypto Traders Turn to AI for Research, But Trust in AI-Led Trading Still Lags

Traders are using artificial intelligence to parse data and sentiment, yet…

October 16, 2026

Bitcoin Fights to Hold $80K as Fed’s Hammack Flags Tougher Inflation Action

A hawkish signal from a Federal Reserve official has added pressure…

The basics, in plain English

What is tokenisation?

Issuing a claim on a real asset - a fund share, a treasury bill, a property - as a token on a blockchain, so it can settle and transfer on that network. The legal wrapper does not change; the settlement rail does.

What is a conditional bank charter?

Permission to operate as a bank once a list of conditions is met - capital, controls, board appointments. Firms often announce the charter; the conditions are the part that decides whether it becomes a bank.

What does AML screening mean for a self-custody wallet?

Under rules coming into force across the EU and elsewhere, exchanges must apply extra checks to transfers to and from wallets they cannot identify. It does not ban self-custody; it adds friction where it touches a regulated business.

What is a layer 2?

A network that processes transactions off a main chain and posts proofs or data back to it, to get lower fees while inheriting the base chain's security. The security inheritance is the claim worth checking in each case.

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