Regulation

A designated contract market (DCM) is an exchange registered with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) under Section 5 of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and Part 38 of the CFTC’s regulations. It may list futures, options and event contracts, and it may admit retail customers directly. Event contracts count as derivatives under federal […]...

The ECB found that none of the largest tokenized money market funds is fully on-chain, and around half still use a traditional book-entry ledger as the primary record of ownership. Analytics reading those chains is reading a notification layer. Crypto analytics was built to de-anonymize a pseudonymous ledger. ERC-3643 tokens are identity-bound at the gate […]...

18 firms were added to the MiCA register in July across 11 European jurisdictions, with Germany taking six and Bulgaria and Liechtenstein two each. Entries reach the register through both of MiCA’s routes, authorization and notification. Five of Germany’s six are cooperative banks recorded with one permitted service, the execution of client orders, with no […]...

No jurisdiction covered here has built a crypto-specific divorce regime, so classification runs on the same acquisition, source-of-funds and commingling rules that govern brokerage accounts and inherited land. The valuation date does most of the damage. Florida allows different assets to be valued on different dates, Ontario locks the number at separation regardless of what […]...

Japan enacted its FIEA reform on 15 July 2026, but the crypto provisions have not commenced, so the Payment Services Act framework from 2017 is still the live rulebook, with the securities-law regime expected to bite around 2027. Custody is the strictest part of the current regime and survives the shift: at least 95% of […]...

One design choice drives nearly every regulatory outcome: whether privacy is mandatory, as with Monero, or optional, as with Zcash. MiCA itself does not ban privacy coins. The binding pressure comes from the accompanying AMLR, which phases in a custodial ban for licensed providers by 2027. Almost nowhere has banned ownership. Restrictions target intermediaries, but […]...

The region’s center of gravity is software, exchanges, and payment rails; the closest thing to a mining story is Slovenia’s NiceHash marketplace, which sells other people’s hashpower. Two incompatible regulatory grammars now split the map: EU members (Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Romania, Slovenia) converging under MiCA since 30 December 2024, and non-EU states each writing their [...

RPAA registration in Canada applies to many payment service providers, including some international businesses serving Canadian users, and it is often separate from FINTRAC MSB registration....

Paxos became the first blockchain-native firm registered as an SEC clearing agency in May 2026, entering the DTCC’s regulatory category while the DTCC itself prepares to tokenise Russell 1000 equities on Stellar in 2027, so the convergence now runs in both directions. The GENIUS Act turned stablecoin issuers into narrow banks in all but name, […]...

The National Bank of Kazakhstan issued its first national crypto exchange license on 2 July 2026 to Pax Finance, a firm registered on 20 May 2026 and capitalized at the 50-million-tenge (~$106,000) legal minimum, bypassing established AIFC platforms like Binance and Bybit. The licensed category is a conversion-and-custody “exchanger” with branches and crypto ATMs, closer […]...

Putting real estate on a blockchain does not change its legal nature. Regulators look past the technical “wrapper” to the economic substance; the chain is plumbing, not a legal shield. On both sides of the Atlantic, any property token that promises a share of profits (rent or appreciation) from someone else’s management is treated as […]...

MiCA replaces Europe’s fragmented national rules with a single, harmonized framework. It mandates that any stablecoin tracking a fiat currency must qualify as a highly regulated E-Money Token (EMT) issued by an authorized credit or electronic money institution. Authorized issuers can no longer rely on opaque offshore banking. They must provide redemption rights at par […]...

The permissioned coordination ledger (WFP’s Building Blocks) scaled into the hundreds of millions, and its strongest payoff is preventing duplicate assistance, while the public-chain stablecoin rail that got the headlines (UNHCR on Stellar) has moved $4.6m since 2022 and remains a pilot. Stablecoins earn their place narrowly, in corridors where banking is absent, illegal, dangerous, [&hellip...

The compliance question isn’t whether crypto is halal, it’s where the reserve yield goes. Conventional stablecoins make their money on interest-bearing reserves, and that is the half an Islamic bank has to rebuild. Malaysia’s Shariah Advisory Council changes the fiqh category by what backs the token, so a fiat-pegged coin and a gold-pegged coin are […]...

Web3 changes the plumbing of space financing (ticket size, settlement, incentive distribution) without touching the economics. Space stays capital-intensive and dependent on spectrum, launch access, and government customers. The scale gap is structural. PIF managing north of $900bn and negotiating a ~$5bn SpaceX anchor sits against MoonDAO’s $184,000 deployed across all of 2025, roughly five...

Incorporation cost is not the same as regulatory funding. Offshore crypto founders must plan beyond setup fees and prove they can operate a compliant, resilient business. Capital requirements depend on the business model. Advisory firms, transfer services, exchanges, custodians, and trading platforms all face different levels of regulatory risk and funding expectations. Regulators care about [&hel...

Prediction markets are increasingly regulated, but the law is still unsettled, and the Van Dyke case made insider-trading-style enforcement a real risk....

The “follow the money” model still works. Investigators trace funds on-chain until they hit an exchange, then subpoena the KYC records. Mixers and privacy coins make tracing harder, but not impossible. Mixer takedowns produce historical data that feeds future investigations. International cooperation is built in. MLATs, Europol, and FinCEN’s Rapid Response Program move evidence a...

While MiCA provides a powerful harmonized regulatory baseline and passporting capabilities within the EU, its authority and geographic reach completely end at the EU border. Expanding into non-EU jurisdictions, such as the UK, US, Singapore, or Dubai, requires secondary licensing specifically tailored to local laws and supervisory expectations. True market access often demands activity-based appro...

Vanuatu has completely shifted its positioning. It is no longer a quiet, lightly supervised jurisdiction, but a formal, regulated hub operating under a strict Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) framework. The 2025 VASP Act structures crypto activities into five specific categories (covering exchanges, transfers, custody, token offerings, and bank-related services) requiring firms to prove real ...

There is no single best jurisdiction. The right one depends on your business model: exchange, custody, token issuance, payments, or DeFi. The EU’s MiCA is the closest thing to a real passport. One CASP license covers all 27 Member States. Nothing in the US or Asia gives you that. Capital requirements swing wildly. Under MiCA, […]...

MiCA’s single biggest advantage is the EU-wide passport. One CASP license, 27 markets. Singapore and Dubai never built one omnibus law. Singapore regulates crypto under its Payment Services Act, Dubai runs a multi-layer system across VARA, the DFSA, the FSRA, and the federal SCA. The stablecoin rules diverge the most. MiCA covers every stablecoin in […]...

Armed with advanced onchain analytics and centralized exchange data-sharing agreements, HMRC has unprecedented visibility into your wallet activity. Selling an underwater crypto asset and immediately buying it back to harvest a capital loss is a fundamental misunderstanding of UK tax law. If you repurchase the same type of token within 30 days of selling it, […]...

Unlike most Western nations, Germany offers a fully legal path to tax-free crypto profits. If you hold a cryptocurrency for more than 365 days, any gains realized upon selling are completely exempt from taxation, regardless of the amount. Cryptocurrencies are classified as “private assets,” not capital assets. If you sell before the one-year mark, your […]...