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Update (Oct. 29, 2026 at 13:30 UTC): This article has been updated to include HTX’s UK exit and withdrawal arrangements and background on Justin Sun.
Cryptocurrency exchange HTX has agreed to stop unlawfully promoting its services to consumers in the United Kingdom under a settlement announced Thursday by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Huobi Global S.A., the Panamanian company behind HTX, agreed that it would not knowingly run illegal promotions, including through the exchange’s website, apps or social media. The court undertakings run until Oct. 21, 2031.
The settlement terms are confidential, and the agreement does not constitute an admission of liability or wrongdoing.
“Crypto firms should be under no illusion: being based overseas does not put them beyond the reach of UK law,” said Steve Smart, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA. “The message to other firms is clear: follow the rules or face the consequences.”
In an Oct. 16 notice outlining its UK exit arrangements, the exchange formerly known as Huobi said existing UK accounts could no longer deposit or trade. Eligible users can request a one-time 48-hour window to withdraw remaining assets, subject to approval and compliance checks. Accounts will close after all assets have been withdrawn.
The FCA brought the case in October 2025 and announced it in February, which it said was the agency’s first enforcement action against a crypto firm over illegal marketing.
HTX counts Tron founder Justin Sun as an adviser. Sun has invested in crypto projects linked to US President Donald Trump, including World Liberty Financial and the TRUMP memecoin.
Sun sued World Liberty in April over the freezing of his WLFI tokens. The company filed a defamation suit against him in May, with Sun denying its allegations.
The settlement in the UK follows separate sanctions against the exchange in the country and European Union.
The UK sanctioned Huobi Global on May 26, imposing an asset freeze over suspected support for Russia’s government. HTX said the company was separate from the exchange, but UK authorities said the platform was covered because Huobi Global owned it.
The EU followed on July 23, imposing a transaction ban on HTX that took effect on Aug. 23.
Related: HTX denies UK sanctions allegations as new data flags $7.6B Russia-linked flows
Cryptocurrency exchanges operating in Brazil face mounting compliance costs and unanswered regulatory questions ahead of a license application deadline.
Exchanges already operating in Brazil must apply for authorization by Friday to continue operating, but the cutoff date is just the start of a lengthy compliance process.
“Filing is the easy part,” Fabio Cendão, founding partner at Brazilian law firm FCM Law, told Cointelegraph, pointing to challenges such as high capital requirements, complex compliance obligations and recurring audits.
Brazil introduced its crypto regulatory framework in November 2025, setting rules for exchanges, custodians and other virtual asset service providers under the supervision of its central bank, the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB).
Brazil ranks as the world’s top country for grassroots crypto adoption, recording $252.5 billion in crypto activity between July 2025 and June 2026, according to Chainalysis.
Crypto platforms that apply on time can continue operating while regulators review their applications, which can take up to two years, according to Cendão.
New entrants must obtain authorization before launching regulated services.
Related: Brazil’s Petrobras uses Cardano to track sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel
Companies that miss the deadline must stop providing services within 30 days from Friday, said Marcelo de Castro Cunha Filho, a lawyer at Machado Meyer. From Nov. 6, banks and payment institutions will also face restrictions on conducting crypto transactions with unauthorized providers.
Under Brazil’s new rules, crypto service providers must verify the origin and destination of crypto transfers, including those involving self-custodial wallets. The rules also impose a $100,000 limit on certain international crypto transfers when the counterparty is not authorized to operate in Brazil’s foreign exchange market.
Binance Brazil general manager Thiago Sarandy told Cointelegraph that questions remain over how exchanges should identify self-custody wallets, interpret a $100,000 operational limit and determine minimum transaction-reporting thresholds.
“The lack of clarity creates a risky situation,” Sarandy said, warning that exchanges may report fragmented or inconsistent data to the regulatory authorities, which “puts in jeopardy the oversight capacity.”
Related: France proposes liability for crypto exchanges offering DeFi access
Sarandy said industry association ABCripto had submitted questions to the BCB but had yet to receive answers.
Major global exchanges have filed applications, including OKX, Binance and Coinbase. Meanwhile, Latin American crypto exchange Bitso is ending direct retail services in Brazil through a partnership with local exchange Mercado Bitcoin.
But smaller operators face a steeper challenge. FCM Law’s Cendão said minimum capital requirements range from 10.8 million Brazilian reais ($2 million) to 37.2 million reais, depending on the services offered, alongside technical certification, custody audits and anti-money laundering controls.
He warned that the costs could make compliance unviable for smaller exchanges, potentially increasing market concentration.
Cunha Filho of Machado Meyer also said it was unclear how exchanges that miss the deadline should return crypto to customers who have no accounts with authorized providers or have not agreed to transfer their assets.
The BCB did not respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment by publication time.
Magazine: Crypto could outperform AI stocks: Wall Street veteran Jordi Visser
Central counterparties would need to show tokenized collateral meets liquidity and risk tests under proposed Bank of England guidance.
The French Senate adopted a bill to allow tax authorities to automatically exchange crypto transaction data with their foreign counterparts.
The bill passed its first reading on Tuesday and was then transmitted to the National Assembly as Bill no. 3421 for consideration.
The bill covers an agreement on exchanging crypto tax information and an update to an existing agreement on financial account information.
The crypto agreement is based on the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). CARF sets common standards for participating jurisdictions to collect and automatically exchange information on crypto transactions.
France already introduced crypto reporting obligations through the 2025 Finance Act, implementing the crypto reporting amendment to the European Union’s Directive on Administrative Cooperation, known as DAC8. The rules require crypto service providers to report customer identities and transaction data to tax authorities, which share the information with authorities in users’ EU countries of residence.
French lawmakers are also debating crypto tax changes in the 2027 budget. The National Assembly adopted an amendment on Oct. 16 that would make gains from conversions into certain fiat-pegged stablecoins taxable from Jan. 1, 2027. The measure is not law yet.
Lawmakers resumed debate on the budget’s revenue section on Tuesday, with a vote scheduled for Nov. 3.
Related: ECB President Christine Lagarde to step down in February 2027
Tax reporting under DAC8 raises data security concerns because it involves sharing personal information, including names, addresses, tax numbers and transaction volumes, between EU tax authorities, Faustine Fleuret, global head of public affairs at lending protocol Morpho, told Cointelegraph.
“In a country where crypto holders have been physically targeted, a leaked list of who trades what, and for how much, is not only a privacy issue but first and foremost a safety issue.”
The European Commission plans to create a central repository for crypto reports by the end of 2026. Each member state’s tax authorities would be able to access information concerning its tax residents.
Fleuret said that centralizing this information could create a “single point of failure” for sensitive crypto transaction data.
Share of wrench attacks by region. Source: CertiK
Fleuret’s remarks follow an alarming rise in physical attacks targeting cryptocurrency investors, also known as wrench attacks. During the first half of 2026, France accounted for 33 of the 52 verified wrench attacks worldwide, according to blockchain security company CertiK.
In a March incident, a French couple in their late 50s was robbed of about $1 million worth of Bitcoin by criminals posing as police officers.
Magazine: France is world’s most dangerous place for Bitcoiners: 90 attacks in 7 months
Lagarde announced plans to step down as European Central Bank President after serving more than seven years in the role.
NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — zerohash, the leading onchain infrastructure provider, today announced that Open USD (“OUSD”) is now live. The capability is available today to all partners zerohash powers across all products, meaningfully expanding distribution of the stablecoin introduced by Open Standard. OUSD is supported across Base, Ethereum, Solana and Tempo.
This integration reflects zerohash’s role as a distribution layer for onchain money. zerohash now offers OUSD as a rail for the partners it powers, which today include industry leaders including Marqeta and Visa Direct.
The announcement extends zerohash’s role in providing leading institutions and enterprises with access to a broad range of chains, assets and instruments without taking on the regulatory or operational complexity themselves. For partners, zerohash also provides the interoperability layer between OUSD and other assets and chains. zerohash partners can now:
“We integrated OUSD because it’s a stablecoin built for payments by the networks that already move the world’s money,” said Mark Daly, Chief Business Officer at zerohash. “For our partners, that means they can seamlessly enable OUSD through their existing zerohash integration, without building additional infrastructure, and with full interoperability across the other stablecoins and chains that we support.”
About zerohash
zerohash is a leading onchain infrastructure provider, offering access to crypto, stablecoins, and tokenized assets. Its API, embeddable dev-kits and MCP suite enable innovators to seamlessly launch solutions across cross-border payments, commerce, trading, remittance, payroll, tokenization, and on/off-ramps. The company has a global regulatory footprint across the EU, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Bermuda, and the U.S., and operates regulated entities in 51 U.S. jurisdictions. For more information, visit zerohash.com.
Disclosures
zerohash services and product offerings may not be available in all jurisdictions. Support for digital assets and stablecoins, including OUSD, may be subject to regulatory approval in certain jurisdictions, including in New York. zerohash accounts are not subject to FDIC or SIPC protections, or any such equivalent protections that may exist outside of the US. zerohash’s technical support and enablement of any asset is not an endorsement of such asset and is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any crypto asset. zerohash is not registered with the SEC or FINRA. zerohash llc, NMLS ID #1699379, is licensed as a money transmitter, and zerohash llc and zerohash liquidity services llc are licensed to engage in Virtual Currency Business Activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services. For additional information please visit www.zerohash.com/disclosures.
Media Contact
media@zerohash.com
Source: zerohash
Aiden Pleterski, facing fraud charges in Canada over his alleged role in a digital asset Ponzi scheme, said that he was innocent at closing.
Global, October 28, 2026 – Reality, the tokenization platform bringing publicly listed equities onchain, Bitget, the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), and Aurelion (NASDAQ: AURE), a Nasdaq-listed gold treasury company, have entered into a strategic partnership in connection with the proposed rAURE launch. Under the partnership, Reality plans to issue rAURE, a tokenized stock backed 1:1 by AURE shares held in custody. Bitget will be the token’s primary trading venue once it launches.
The partnership will bring the first onchain stock token representing a Nasdaq-listed gold treasury company to Web3 markets, creating an unusual intersection between public equities, tokenization and gold. Aurelion holds XAU₮ (Tether Gold) as its primary treasury asset, making rAURE an onchain representation of a publicly listed company whose treasury strategy itself centers on tokenized gold.
Reality will issue rAURE through its tokenization infrastructure, with each token backed 1:1 by an underlying AURE share held in custody. Its mint-and-redeem mechanism connects rAURE with the underlying equity, creating a verifiable link between the onchain token and the shares it represents.
“Bringing rAURE onchain is about making this exposure available through the infrastructure digital-asset users already use,” said Alice Li, Head of Reality. “Reality will connect the token to the underlying AURE shares, while the listing on Bitget will give it broader distribution and liquidity. That combination is what allows tokenized equities to scale beyond individual platforms.”
“For most of its history, holding gold has meant choosing preservation over productivity. Aurelion exists to remove that trade-off,” said Frank, Chief Executive Officer of Aurelion Inc. “We build two things: a risk layer that prices, monitors and manages gold-backed exposure in real time, and a technology layer that makes that exposure usable — including authorizing a payment against gold collateral in under two seconds. We are applying those same layers to a gold-backed payment card issued by our licensed partners, so that holders can put their gold to work without giving it up. Bringing rAURE to Bitget through Reality will make this accessible to a far broader set of users, and we look forward to building alongside the Bitget and Morph ecosystems.”
Through its listing on Bitget, eligible users in permitted jurisdictions will be able to trade rAURE 24/7 alongside other tokenized equities and digital assets, extending access to AURE-linked exposure beyond conventional U.S. equity market hours, subject to applicable eligibility and jurisdictional requirements.
“Adding more assets only matters if they give traders something new,” said Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget. “rAURE will bring together a Nasdaq-listed equity and a treasury strategy built around tokenized gold, creating a different kind of exposure for our users. That’s the value we want UEX to keep unlocking.”
The partnership brings together three distinct layers of market infrastructure. Aurelion is the Nasdaq-listed issuer of the shares referenced by rAURE, with a treasury strategy focused on tokenized gold; Reality independently will issue rAURE by reference to the underlying sharesbrings that equity onchain and maintains the infrastructure connecting rAURE with the underlying shares; and Bitget will provide the primary trading venue for the resulting tokenized asset. rAURE will expand Reality’s growing range of rTokens bringing publicly listed securities onchain, with each token maintaining a defined link to its underlying asset. Through its listing on Bitget, rAURE also enters a broader multi-asset trading environment, extending Reality’s tokenization infrastructure to Bitget’s global trading audience alongside crypto and other global markets.
Launch and listing dates will be shared in a separate announcement.
About Reality
Reality is a regulated real-world asset issuance platform built for global markets, and is proudly part of the Bitget ecosystem. Working with licensed brokers across major exchanges, including Nasdaq and the NYSE, we purchase and hold the underlying assets in custody, then issue the corresponding rights on-chain. This connects traditional capital markets with on-chain infrastructure, opening institutional-grade access to real-world assets for users worldwide.
About Aurelion
Aurelion is a publicly listed company building a digital gold risk and technology infrastructure around XAU₮, on-chain gold backed by physical LBMA bars. Combining the characteristics of physical gold with the efficiency of blockchain technology, XAU₮ serves as the foundation of Aurelion’s digital gold treasury strategy. The Company is committed to the prudent management and efficient utilization of its proprietary digital gold holdings, while providing risk management and technical support for selected tokenized gold initiatives. Through its technology-driven approach, Aurelion seeks to contribute to the responsible development and broader adoption of digital gold and tokenized asset solutions.
About Bitget
Bitget is the world’s largest Universal Exchange (UEX), serving over 125 million users and offering access to over 2M crypto tokens, 500+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX, and precious metals such as gold. The ecosystem is committed to helping users trade smarter with its AI agent, which co-pilots trade execution. Bitget is driving crypto adoption through strategic partnerships such as MotoGP™. Aligned with its global impact strategy, Bitget has joined hands with UNICEF to support blockchain education for 1.1 million people by 2027. Bitget currently leads in the tokenized TradFi market, providing the industry’s lowest fees and highest liquidity across 150 regions worldwide.
Source: Bitget
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Ibis, a new onchain credit platform, has emerged from stealth with a $250 million credit facility from FalconX.
The company also completed an undisclosed pre-seed funding round backed by FalconX and investors across institutional credit, capital markets and digital asset infrastructure. Anchorage Digital and Innovating Capital are participating as strategic partners and investors.
The launch reflects a wider effort to develop credit infrastructure for cryptocurrency businesses that have historically faced limited access to conventional bank financing.
Ibis plans to originate, structure, tokenize and manage credit facilities for institutional borrowers.
Its initial customers will be cryptocurrency trading firms whose financing requirements involve volatile collateral, complex trading strategies and continuous market exposure. The platform aims to connect these borrowers with institutional capital providers through structured lending arrangements.
Unlike conventional decentralized finance lending protocols, which often rely on predetermined collateral ratios and automated liquidations, Ibis intends to incorporate borrower-specific underwriting and structured credit management.
The approach places greater emphasis on evaluating operating businesses rather than simply determining the market value of pledged cryptocurrency.
“Frontier markets are developing faster than the financial infrastructure built to support them. Today, many high-quality businesses with strong fundamentals are underserved, not because they lack creditworthiness, but because traditional underwriters refuse to innovate,” said Cooper Emmons, founder and chief executive of Ibis.
The company has not disclosed the interest rates, repayment terms, collateral requirements or expected utilization of its $250 million FalconX facility.
The announced facility represents financing capacity, rather than evidence that Ibis has already originated $250 million in loans. Its pre-seed valuation and the amount raised were also not disclosed.
FalconX will play two roles in Ibis’s development: providing the credit facility and participating as an investor.
The institutional cryptocurrency prime brokerage already offers margin financing, customized collateral arrangements, lending and structured products. Its existing infrastructure gives it experience managing credit exposure across digital asset markets.
“Access to reliable, institutional-grade credit is an important part of the continued maturation of digital assets,” said Joshua Lim, co-head of global markets at FalconX.
Anchorage Digital Bank will provide custody, banking and design support for Ibis.
Its involvement is significant because institutional lending requires enforceable control over collateral, reliable settlement processes and mechanisms to respond when borrowers breach agreed risk limits.
Anchorage already operates Atlas, a collateral-management platform that monitors loan-to-value ratios, processes margin calls and supports liquidation procedures for institutional crypto-secured transactions.
Innovating Capital will contribute expertise in private credit, transaction structuring and strategic development.
The pre-seed investor group also includes executives associated with Erebor, Revolut, Injective Foundation, Selini, Flowdesk, Morpho, Superstate, Blockchain.com and other firms. Their participation does not necessarily represent investment commitments by their employers.
Cryptocurrency markets operate continuously, but conventional financing systems were designed around banking hours, traditional collateral and established corporate borrowers.
Trading firms need working capital to support market-making, arbitrage, settlement and liquidity provision. Without reliable credit, these firms may have to pre-fund positions or hold excess capital across multiple venues.
Structured financing could improve capital efficiency by allowing eligible borrowers to access funds against carefully monitored collateral.
However, improving credit availability does not eliminate counterparty, liquidity or market risks.
Ibis is entering a sector where institutional lenders increasingly require independent custody, transparent collateral arrangements and stronger borrower assessments following earlier failures in cryptocurrency lending.
The challenge is therefore not simply increasing loan supply. It is creating financing structures that remain enforceable during periods of extreme market volatility.
Ibis will enter a market in which its principal financing partner has already established substantial lending operations.
In August 2026, FalconX announced a $1 billion secured warehouse financing facility with Ethena. The arrangement uses assets backing Ethena’s USDe to finance overcollateralized institutional loans through a special-purpose vehicle.
FalconX serves as loan originator, servicer and collateral manager, while qualified custodians hold pledged assets.
FalconX has also expanded distribution of tokenized credit through other partners.
In May, it partnered with Sygnum Bank to offer eligible institutional and private banking clients access to a tokenized structured credit facility. In June, Plume introduced an onchain vault providing exposure to FalconX-originated institutional loans.
These initiatives have also attracted measurable capital.
In September, RedStone reported that the FalconX Credit Vault on Pareto carried more than $170 million in credit exposure. The integration enabled the vault’s valuation data to be used across multiple blockchain networks.
The opportunity for Ibis lies in developing differentiated underwriting, borrower relationships and financing structures rather than competing solely on access to capital.
Maple Finance represents one of Ibis’s most established competitors in institutional onchain lending.
Maple reported $4.7 billion in AUM at the end of the Q3 2026. Its outstanding loans reached $1.7 billion, while year-to-date loan originations totaled $8.3 billion.
The figures demonstrate that institutional lending through blockchain-based platforms has already achieved significant scale.
Competition also extends to Centrifuge, Clearpool and other platforms connecting institutional borrowers with capital providers through tokenized assets and structured lending.
According to RWA.xyz, tokenized credit had $8.58 billion in distributed value and $41.34 billion in represented value as of October 28, 2026. The figures measure different forms of onchain credit representation and should not be combined.
Yet the sector’s history illustrates the consequences of inadequate underwriting.
In December 2022, Orthogonal Trading defaulted on $36 million in loans on Maple Finance following the collapse of FTX. The incident exposed weaknesses in borrower disclosures, credit concentration and counterparty monitoring.
Maple subsequently reassessed its lending and risk-management framework.
For newer platforms such as Ibis, maintaining lending standards while expanding credit capacity will be central to winning institutional confidence.
Ibis also plans to extend its platform beyond cryptocurrency markets.
Potential borrowers include businesses financing GPUs, robotics infrastructure and venture-backed technology companies. These industries often require specialized underwriting because collateral values and revenue models differ from those used in conventional corporate lending.
The opportunity is already attracting competing credit platforms.
USD.AI, which specializes in financing artificial intelligence computing infrastructure, reported more than $420 million in lifetime deployed financing in October 2026. In September, it announced a $128.9 million GPU-backed facility supporting an Nvidia GB200 deployment in Canada.
These developments suggest that Ibis’s expansion plans would place it in competition with specialized asset-backed lenders, not just cryptocurrency credit platforms.
Ibis enters the market with substantial announced financing capacity and relationships across digital asset infrastructure, custody and institutional credit.
However, its operating performance remains unproven.
Investors will need evidence of actual loan originations, borrower diversification, repayment performance, collateral quality and the enforceability of its credit structures.
Read Also: This is the First U.S.-Chartered Depository Bank to Offer Stablecoin Invoicing
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