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Dren Hima

ABOUT AUTHOR

Dren Hima is Head of Research at Coincub, leading research across digital asset regulation, licensing, market structure, tokenization and institutional adoption.

Blockchain
What Happens When a Blockchain Shuts Down? Someone Calls the Validators
Balances and keys survive a clean halt in the last agreed state. Solana’s 2021 restart from its last confirmed slot needed at least 80% of active stake. Ethereum Classic kept producing blocks through two attacks in 2020 that orphaned more than 7,900 blocks and double spent about $9 million. BNB Beacon Chain warned that assets […]...
2 days ago
BlockchainCryptoWeb 3.0
Prophet Margins in Crypto Oracle Manipulation
In most of the largest oracle exploits, the oracle reported its market accurately after the attacker had moved that market. A lending protocol stays safe only while the cheapest way to create and hold a harmful price costs more than the value that price can unlock. The 2020 bZx exploit would have paid the same […]...
2 days ago
RegulationTokenization
Tokenized Collateral Moves Faster and Weighs the Same
US bank regulators give an eligible tokenized security the same haircuts as its conventional form, so a tokenized two-year Treasury note keeps the 2% in the capital rule’s table. ESMA’s review of tokenized CCP collateral keeps the eligible asset list fixed. Broadridge’s repo ledger averaged $359 billion a day in September 2026, while every tokenized […]...
2 days ago
Blockchain
Chain Abstraction Is Buy Now, Settle Later
Chain abstraction hands network, bridge, and gas decisions to solvers, relayers, verifiers, and signing committees. An Across relayer delivers funds in about two seconds and then waits on a settlement bundle cycle of roughly 1.5 hours. ERC-4337, EIP-7702, and EIP-5792 are Final, while the cross-chain intent standard ERC-7683 is still a Draft. The largest 2026 […]...
2 days ago
Bitcoin
How Crypto Got Into ISO 20022 Through the Back Office
ISO’s FAQ says no cryptocurrency is inherently ISO 20022 compliant, and no certification authority exists. Tokens enter ISO 20022 messages as ISO 24165 Digital Token Identifiers. Standards Release 2025 added ledger and token identifiers for places of settlement and safekeeping, a 140-character blockchain cash wallet field and a smart contract price source to securities messages. […]...
2 weeks ago
CryptoPayments
Bank of Record, Chain of Custody: Citi and Coinbase Stablecoin Payments
Citi provides the fiat account and bank-of-record settlement in both products, and Coinbase handles every step involving a stablecoin. Coinbase’s documentation shows Citi-powered virtual accounts taking ACH and Fedwire deposits and converting them 1:1 into USDC, with Base as the documented sweep network. Spring’s tokens, chains, pricing, settlement times and volumes are unpublished. Th...
2 weeks ago
Blockchain
Stablecoin Blockchains and the Fight for the Float
Reserve income was $668 million of Circle’s $701 million second-quarter 2026 total, and stablecoin chains are a bid to keep more of it. Arc, Plasma, Tempo and Stable held under 1% of stablecoin supply on 7 October 2026. Arc and Tempo finalize in under a second, against about 15 minutes on Ethereum. USDT0, the gas […]...
2 weeks ago
RegulationWeb 3.0
Audited Up to Here: What a Smart Contract Audit Checks
Smart contract exploits cost $905.4 million across 122 protocols during 2025. Cetus lost $223 million and Balancer roughly $128 million, and in both cases the broken code sat outside the scope of the audits covering those protocols. Automation is fast and partial, and the best three-tool combination in a 2025 evaluation caught 76.78% of annotated […]...
4 weeks ago
Crypto License
Canada MSB License Cost in 2026: $0 to $20 Million
FINTRAC charges no fee to register or renew a money services business. The registration runs for two years and has to be renewed before it expires. Revenu Québec publishes the only MSB fee grid in the country, at $826 per service category for the year to 31 March 2027. Quebec’s cryptoasset ATM fee jumped from […]...
4 weeks ago
Regulation
Possession Is Nine Tenths of the Ledger: Tokenized Asset Ownership
Of the four tokenization structures SEC staff mapped in January 2026, one moves the security itself. The September exemptive order makes every venue verify that a tokenized share carries the same dividend, voting, and liquidation rights as the conventional one. Swiss law lets a qualifying ledger hold the security itself under four statutory conditions, while […]...
4 weeks ago
Regulation
Outsourcing Crypto Compliance Is a Staffing Decision
MiCA Article 73 and FCA SYSC 8.1.8R both require an outsourcing firm to keep in-house expertise for evaluating the vendor’s work. A European CASP carries MiCA and DORA at once, and Article 73 compliance settles nothing under DORA. Supervisors can order a firm to drop a designated critical ICT provider. Washington proposed replacing the 2023 […]...
4 weeks ago
ETFTokenization
Tokenized Gold vs Gold ETFs in 2026: Who Holds the Bar
The FCA’s 14 September 2026 call for input asks whether tokenized gold products sit inside the UK collective investment scheme and alternative investment fund perimeter, and an authorized firm cannot promote a product that lands inside it. PAX Gold and Tether Gold both set physical redemption at 430 tokens, around $1.85 million of metal at […]...
1 month ago
Regulation
Can Stablecoin Issuers Freeze Funds Without a Court Order?
Section 4(a)(6)(B) allows issuance only where the issuer can comply with a lawful order to seize, freeze, burn or block its tokens. Tether burns frozen balances, Circle blocks transfers without burning, and the Paxos contract behind PYUSD can wipe a frozen address. Both major issuers reserve the right to move before a court order exists, […]...
1 month ago
Regulation
Token Listing Due Diligence: The Venue Owns the Paper
MiCA Article 5(2) hands the crypto-asset white paper obligations to any trading platform that admits a token on its own initiative. Article 15 extends civil liability to the operator and its management body, and contractual exclusions have no legal effect. Article 76 bars assets that hide holders behind an anonymization function. Gotbit’s founder forfeited around […]...
1 month ago
CryptoTokenization
Tokenized Deposits vs Stablecoins: Three Ledgers, No Bridge
No bank’s deposit token reaches another bank’s ledger yet. The Clearing House targets live cross-bank transactions for the second quarter of 2027. The FDIC’s proposed rule makes a tokenized deposit a deposit under the FDI Act and leaves stablecoin holders without pass-through insurance. The Bank of England dropped individual holding caps and set a £40 […]...
1 month ago
Tokenization
24/7 Tokenized Asset Trading: 0.55% on Weekends
Weekends drew 0.55% of volume on the largest tokenized US equity platform through May 2026, against 52% inside US market hours. Atomic settlement removes multilateral netting, and every weekend trade has to be prefunded in cash that clears without a bank. The Bank of England proposes Sunday CHAPS settlement no earlier than 2029. Nasdaq’s tokenized […]...
1 month ago
Crypto LicenseRegulation
Custody Won the MiCA Register: How to Scope CASP Permissions
Custody appears on 194 of the roughly 330 CASP authorizations on ESMA’s register; operating a trading platform appears on twenty. The industry licensed itself as broker-dealers with wallets. Annex IV Class 1/2/3 are capital floors keyed to your highest-risk service, and Article 59 requires the authorization to name each service individually. Class 3 grants nothing […]...
1 month ago
Crypto License
AFSL Scope After BPS Financial: Capacity Beats Coverage
The BPS Financial appeal turned on representative capacity, not on whether the principal’s AFSL reached the product, so a corporate authorized representative arrangement can be validly appointed, correctly registered and still leave the representative unlicensed. Scope is an intersection of entity, service, capacity, product class, client class, conditions and relief, and a mismatch on any [...
1 month ago
Crypto License
Singapore DTSP License: 14 Months, Zero Licensees
MAS’s Financial Institutions Directory lists 3,653 entities across 48 license types as of 7 September 2026, and Digital Token Service Provider is not one of them. Fourteen months after commencement, there is no public record of a single grant. The refusal power sits in section 138(3)(f)(iii), which lets MAS decline unless it is satisfied the […]...
1 month ago
Crypto License
Stablecoin License vs Bank Charter: What You Get in 2026
Circle’s national bank cannot take a deposit or make a loan. The OCC granted final approval on 10 July 2026 for a trust charter limited to fiduciary custody and reserve management, and that is the shape every digital-asset applicant is being handed. Four regulators have now banned paying holders. MiCA Article 50, the GENIUS Act, […]...
1 month ago
Crypto License
PVARA Licensing in Pakistan: What the Rules Require
The transitional deadline ran from a commencement reference of 5 March 2026, so the six-month Section 70 clock closed on 5 September and anyone serving Pakistani users without a filed application now faces up to five years, a fine of up to fifty million rupees, or both. PVARA notified the licensing framework on 21 August […]...
1 month ago
Crypto License
The Monthly Register – Crypto Licensing in August 2026
All ten MiCA register entries dated in August had Germany as their home state. No other country appeared. Nine of those ten were cooperative banks recorded for execution of client orders and nothing else. The tenth, dwpbank, carries custody, both forms of exchange and transfers. Dubai recorded six regulatory steps split evenly, three full VASP […]...
2 months ago
Crypto LicenseRegulation
The Canada MSB Registry of Convenience
Xeltox Enterprises, trading as Cryptomus, was a registered money services business throughout the conduct that drew a $176,960,190 FINTRAC penalty in October 2025, roughly seven times the more than $25 million FINTRAC issued across all 23 Notices of Violation in 2024-25. The penalty is under appeal in Federal Court. The public registry runs four statuses, […]...
2 months ago
Crypto LicenseRegulation
RPAA Acquisition of Control: The Target Files, the Buyer Waits
The registered PSP being acquired files the section 24 application, and it must be re-registered before the transaction closes, which puts the closing condition in the hands of the party the buyer is negotiating against. The Bank’s 45-day window is a period to decide whether to refuse a completed application, and the Minister of Finance […]...
2 months ago