Hester Peirce’s resignation took effect on Oct. 2, leaving Paul Atkins and Mark Uyeda as the only sitting members of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A rule change published on Sept. 30, effective the same day, now allows a single commissioner to form a quorum when every other commissioner is disqualified from a specific matter. Under the current roster, that means either Atkins or Uyeda could act alone as the Commission’s decision‑making body for issues on which the remaining member is not disqualified. The amendment modifies 17 C.F.R. § 200.41, the provision that defines the minimum number of eligible commissioners required to conduct Commission business. The change extends an existing exception that previously covered situations with fewer than three sitting members; it now also covers cases where two members are present but one is disqualified from a particular issue. The SEC described the adjustment as an internal management measure that promotes flexibility and finality, stating that it does not create new substantive regulatory authority.

Peirce’s departure was announced in a Sept. 21 letter stating her exit would be effective Oct. 2. The SEC’s updated roster, released Oct. 3, lists Chairman Atkins and Commissioner Uyeda. The agency’s historical service table also records Peirce’s tenure ending on Oct. 2.

The agency continues to advance several crypto‑related initiatives. A proposed custody rule, circulated among the three commissioners on Oct. 1 and later approved for public comment, would set standards for how registered investment companies and advisers may hold crypto assets. The rule remains in the proposed stage, with a comment deadline set for Dec. 7. Another proposal, Regulation Crypto Assets, was issued Aug. 18 and published Aug. 21; it would create exemptions for certain crypto‑related investment contracts while preserving antifraud and antimalpractice provisions.

A separate conditional exemptive order, dated Sept. 17, provides temporary relief for tokenized securities traded on national securities exchanges and certain liquidity providers. The order, which runs for five years, imposes limits on symbols, volume, and disclosure requirements, and it requires issuer notice and an opportunity to object when a third‑party tokenizes stock.

The new quorum provision does not replace voting or legal authority. Under the SEC’s seriatim rule, a matter is not final until each commissioner reports a vote or intended nonparticipation to the secretary. Commissioners may also request that a circulated matter be withdrawn for joint deliberation. The amendment merely clarifies that a single eligible commissioner can act when all others are disqualified from a given issue; it does not broaden the scope of any exemption or remove existing safeguards.

Legal scholars note that the change could affect how quickly the Commission can act on crypto‑related matters, especially as the agency navigates a reduced roster. However, any decision made under the new quorum rule remains subject to the Administrative Procedure Act’s notice‑and‑comment requirements and to judicial review if found to exceed statutory authority.

The next concrete milestones for crypto firms are the Dec. 7 comment deadline for the custody proposal, the ongoing review of the tokenized‑stock exemptive order, and any future Commission votes that will be recorded under the revised quorum framework. The agency has indicated that it will continue to post vote tallies only when a matter reaches a final stage, so the current record reflects only the Oct. 1 approval of the custody rule by all three commissioners before Peirce’s departure.

A federal court in Los Angeles sentenced Adam Iza, 26, to 78 months in prison on Tuesday for orchestrating a scheme that defrauded Meta of more than $37 million, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Iza, who referred to himself as "The Godfather," also pleaded guilty to tax evasion and conspiracy against rights after prosecutors said he used off‑duty Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies to intimidate rivals.

The sentencing order, issued by U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson, requires Iza to pay $23.4 million in restitution. The prison term will run concurrently with a 15‑year sentence he received in Connecticut for a separate attempted Bitcoin robbery that occurred in August 2024.

Prosecutors said Iza gained unauthorized access to Meta’s Business Manager accounts and associated credit lines, then sold that access to advertising firms. The scheme allowed Meta to bill clients for ads that were never purchased, after which the company refunded the charges. Investigators estimated that the fraud resulted in an approximate $13.3 million loss to the Internal Revenue Service.

Between 2021 and 2022, Iza allegedly hired former sheriff’s deputies to obtain confidential law‑enforcement databases, personal data and search warrants to monitor and harass individuals he considered competitors. Five former deputies have already been convicted in related cases.

During sentencing, prosecutors emphasized that individuals with significant financial resources cannot purchase access to confidential databases, investigative tools, warrants, arrests, badges or firearms for private disputes. The case illustrates how crypto custodians can become tools in broader fraud and tax‑evasion operations, as Iza moved illicit corporate income through crypto custodial accounts while concealing ownership of a company named Zort.

The sentencing follows recent high‑profile cases involving cryptocurrency fraud. Earlier in the month, a Brooklyn man received a 12‑year prison term for impersonating Coinbase customer‑service representatives and deceiving roughly 100 victims. In August, a Las Vegas businessman was found guilty of running a crypto Ponzi scheme that defrauded at least 400 investors of $24 million.

DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence company, is preparing to raise at least $12 billion in a funding round that could expand to $15 billion, according to a Bloomberg report citing sources familiar with the matter. The financing, led by investors including Tencent Holdings and battery manufacturer CATL, would value the firm ahead of a planned initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in early 2027. The round follows the launch of DeepSeek’s V4 Flash model, which the company says improves cost efficiency and performance relative to competing systems from OpenAI and Anthropic. Demand for the offering is expected to exceed initial targets, reflecting growing investor interest in AI infrastructure amid intensifying competition between U.S. and Chinese firms.

The development comes as other AI companies also advance toward public listings. Moonshot AI, developer of the Kimi chatbot, completed its final private funding round at a $50 billion valuation and is targeting a similar IPO timeline. OpenAI has indicated intentions to raise at least $30 billion at a $1.4 trillion pre-money valuation, with potential participation from BlackRock and sovereign wealth funds in the United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile, Anthropic has said it may pursue an IPO following the U.S. midterm elections, with estimated valuations near $2 trillion.

The funding activity underscores a broader trend of substantial capital inflows into AI development, driven by expectations of long-term technological and economic impact. While valuations have risen sharply, companies continue to focus on scaling model performance and reducing operational costs. The moves reflect sustained confidence in AI’s trajectory, even as regulatory and market uncertainties persist.

The article was produced with editorial oversight and adheres to standard verification practices. It draws on publicly reported figures and statements from industry participants.

The Solana Foundation unveiled Solana DvP, an open-source delivery-versus-payment program that enables institutions to settle asset and payment transfers on-chain within seconds. The protocol compresses multi-step settlement processes into a single atomic transaction, ensuring that trades either complete entirely or not at all, thereby eliminating counterparty risk inherent in traditional finance. By replacing fragmented custom smart contracts with a standardized framework, the initiative aims to reduce friction costs associated with moving value on-chain and support the scalability of tokenized assets. JPMorgan contributed settlement expertise to the project, while external audits confirmed the program's security. Privacy features are planned to address institutional demand for confidentiality, as highlighted at Consensus Hong Kong earlier this year. The foundation emphasized that the protocol operates on public infrastructure, offering a shared standard for atomic settlement across the Solana ecosystem. This development follows earlier experiments, including a USDC-based commercial paper deal involving Galaxy Digital, and aligns with broader industry efforts to integrate blockchain infrastructure with regulated finance. The initiative reflects ongoing attempts to modernize settlement practices, though its adoption will depend on institutional readiness and evolving regulatory frameworks.

A U.S. lawmaker has introduced legislation that would impose penalties of at least $10,000 on federal candidates who trade prediction market contracts tied to their own elections.

The bill, formally titled the No Betting on Your Own Race Act, would prohibit candidates, their spouses, dependent children and authorized campaign committees from buying, selling or holding contracts linked to election outcomes, vote share, margins or placement. The restriction would extend to primaries, caucuses, conventions and other nomination contests.

Under the proposal, violations would trigger a civil penalty of $10,000 or three times the net financial gain from the transaction, whichever is higher. The legislation also covers indirect trades: a candidate could be found in breach by directing another person to acquire or dispose of a covered contract, or by knowingly funding such a transaction.

The Federal Election Commission would be required to maintain a free, machine-readable list of federal candidates and update it at least weekly. Candidates would receive notice of the trading restriction when filing for office. Prediction market operators and brokers would not face penalties solely for facilitating a prohibited transaction, provided they take good-faith steps to close accounts, void or unwind trades and report suspected violations to the CFTC, Department of Justice or FEC.

The bill does not name specific platforms, but its definition of political event contracts would apply to products offered on prediction markets. It follows earlier congressional efforts to restrict elected officials from trading such instruments. In June, House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil had proposed adding prediction market restrictions to H.R. 7008, a broader stock-trading reform measure.

The legislation comes after Kalshi, a prediction market operator, suspended Laurie Buckhout, a Republican candidate in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, for three years and imposed a $2,589.96 financial penalty. Buckhout had purchased less than $1,000 worth of contracts tied to her own race. She later said, “I bet on myself. Literally,” describing the action as a “dumb mistake.”

Kalshi’s rules classify political candidates as individuals capable of influencing the outcome of their races and bar them from trading contracts linked to those contests. The company has also suspended three congressional candidates for five years over similar violations earlier in the year.

Lawmakers have previously examined whether access to nonpublic information could give candidates an unfair advantage in prediction markets. On September 23, all 11 Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee urged Chair Tim Scott to hold a public hearing on prediction markets, citing concerns about market integrity, consumer protection and potential classification of certain contracts as security-based swaps under SEC rules.

The CFTC has also warned exchanges about markets influenced by individuals with direct control over outcomes, asking operators to explain how they detect misuse of nonpublic information and identify people capable of influencing settlement.

Kalshi has continued pursuing federal approval for new trading structures. In September, it filed for a margin framework covering eligible event contracts, including political, economic and commercial events. The proposed system would allow qualified participants to post margin rather than fully fund potential losses upfront, though sports contracts would remain excluded and access would be limited to participants trading through registered futures commission merchants or approved self-clearing members.

The bill was introduced during a pro forma House session, leaving limited time for congressional action before the November 3 midterm elections. The House is not expected to resume regular voting until November 9, six days after the election. Even if passed later, the restrictions would apply only to conduct occurring after the law’s enactment, not retroactively to trades made during the current cycle.

Political event contracts remain available on platforms such as Kalshi, which currently lists markets tied to control of the House and Senate, individual congressional races and other U.S. political outcomes.

A $6 million exploit at an unnamed Base vault highlighted a gap in how security flaws are disclosed, according to Immunefi's head of security. The vault held approximately $31.7 million in assets when the incident was briefed. Around $6 million in wstETH was stolen after a malicious contract accessed the vault through a multisignature wallet. Seven signers of the vault's Safe wallet remained unidentified, and no public response emerged more than 24 hours after the attack. Immunefi's Gonçalo Magalhães stated that approved addresses could withdraw vault assets without requiring collateral, creating a vulnerability that bypassed standard protections. The whitelist mechanism, which appeared to restrict access, allowed any pre-approved address to move funds without collateral once authorized. Magalhães noted that the flaw had been identified a week prior, but the researcher faced limited options to address it without risking legal exposure. The researcher, operating under anonymity, could not safely intervene without clear disclosure channels. Base vault permissions enabled withdrawals without collateral, and the attacker used a Safe wallet to add a malicious contract to the whitelist before withdrawing 1,783 aBaswstETH and converting it to wstETH via Aave V3. Magalhães emphasized that the whitelist's design failed to account for the actions an approved address could take, turning a seemingly controlled access system into a critical weakness. The vault had remained inactive for 25 days before the exploit, according to TokenPost. The report suggested social engineering or collusion as possible causes for the access change, though neither was confirmed. Magalhães urged the vault operators to identify themselves and respond to the incident, calling their silence suspicious but not conclusive. He noted that the lack of ownership transparency and the approval process that allowed unauthorized access raised broader concerns about the vault's governance. Immunefi's CEO Mitchell Amador previously advocated for private vulnerability disclosure through structured bounty programs, citing the Liquid Network incident where stolen funds were partially returned but bounties were disputed. Amador argued that protocols should establish predefined rescue protocols, including researcher actions and reward terms, before emergencies occur. Immunefi's Whitehat Safe Harbor framework aims to formalize such conditions. Magalhães suggested that a bug bounty might have prevented the attack, as the vulnerability could likely have been detected through community monitoring. Immunefi's July bounty program distributed $2.32 million for confirmed vulnerabilities, with paid reports rising 18% from June. The company also reported preventing 374 threats and found that competitive audits uncovered more vulnerabilities than private ones. A separate Hacken analysis indicated that 88.3% of $764 million stolen in Q2 resulted from infrastructure or key compromises, not just smart contract flaws. Only 4% of projects combined audits, bug bounties, and third-party monitoring. Fourteen audited projects had later been exploited, highlighting risks from signer devices, administrator keys, and bridge validators. In the U.S., the Justice Department prosecuted security researcher Shakeeb Ahmed for stealing over $12 million from decentralized exchanges, later negotiating partial asset returns while retaining a portion. Another case involved Nirvana Finance, where Ahmed rejected a $600,000 bounty offer and kept nearly $3.6 million after failing to reach a settlement. These cases underscore the legal and financial stakes of unauthorized fund withdrawals in decentralized systems.

A memorandum of understanding signed by Securitize and LG CNS outlines collaboration on three fronts of digital asset development for South Korean financial institutions. The agreement addresses market growth, tokenization technology, and digital asset infrastructure, with planned services contingent on local regulations, regulatory approvals, and internal compliance protocols.

LG CNS introduced KITL, a platform designed to support banks, securities firms, payment providers, and other financial entities in building stablecoin systems, tokenized securities, and real-world asset services. Core functions of KITL include digital wallets, transaction processing, network fee management, and transaction record collection. The platform draws on technology tested during the Bank of Korea’s Project Hangang, which involved seven banks and approximately 80,000 customers in real-world payment trials at retail locations.

Under the partnership, Securitize will contribute expertise in regulated tokenization, while LG CNS will leverage its network within Korea’s financial sector. Their joint efforts will focus on institutional tokenized funds, securities, stablecoins, and digital asset treasury solutions. Any offerings must undergo regulatory review and internal compliance checks before launch.

The collaboration aims to identify opportunities across South Korea and broader Asia-Pacific markets, with an emphasis on technical implementation, product development, and education for institutions exploring tokenized financial products. Securitize co-founder and CEO Carlos Domingo highlighted the country’s strong financial and technology sectors as key drivers for the initiative, stating the goal is to support infrastructure that enables high-quality financial products on blockchain networks.

Hongkeun Kim, executive vice president of LG CNS’s Digital Business Division, emphasized that combining local fintech capabilities with Securitize’s infrastructure could enable practical, regulation-aligned applications. The partnership builds on an existing relationship between Securitize and KB Securities, which previously entered a three-party agreement involving tokenized fund offerings on the Optimism blockchain. That arrangement included plans for a money market fund targeting institutional clients, with potential expansion into other asset classes subject to local rules.

South Korea’s regulatory framework for tokenized securities is scheduled to take effect on February 4, 2027. The Financial Services Commission has proposed operational requirements, including equity capital thresholds, staffing mandates, and governance rules for distributed ledger usage. Approved ledgers must be shared between at least two account management entities and the Korea Securities Depository, with restrictions on user access fees. Trading proposals include an over-the-counter licensing category for debt securities and a annual purchase limit of 100 million won for retail investors on each OTC exchange.

The regulatory comment period for these proposals ran from October 2 to November 11, with final rules requiring successive approvals before implementation. Meanwhile, Securitize’s U.S. listing on the NYSE through SECZ shares provides a pathway for American investors to access its tokenization services. The company reported approximately $5 billion in assets under management as of September, with major partners including BlackRock, Apollo, and KKR.

Earlier investments in Securitize by Hanwha Group entities, including a 9.6% stake held through various affiliates, predate the current LG CNS collaboration. These investments were executed independently by each entity, according to disclosures.

FinCEN announced on October 5 that it is withdrawing a proposed rule that would have required financial institutions to report details of cryptocurrency mixing transactions. The proposal, first introduced in 2023, would have expanded the agency’s scope to cover a broad range of techniques used to obscure transaction data, including pooling funds, coordinating transfers through code, splitting payments, routing through multiple single-use wallets, exchanging between digital assets, and introducing user-initiated delays. Under the draft rule, reporting obligations would have applied whenever a domestic financial institution had knowledge, suspicion, or reason to suspect that a transaction involved mixing, regardless of the protocol or service employed. The notice published on October 6 in the Federal Register indicated that the withdrawal would take immediate effect upon publication. FinCEN cited feedback from industry stakeholders who argued that the definition was overly broad and could deter legitimate use of privacy-enhancing tools, while imposing significant compliance costs on banks, broker-dealers, and money services businesses. The agency emphasized that existing obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act, including registration requirements, risk-based anti-money-laundering programs, customer due diligence, recordkeeping, and suspicious activity reporting, would remain in force. It also clarified that certain internal transaction processes used by financial institutions to settle transfers could be excluded from reporting if institutions retained source and destination records and provided them upon legal request. For users of unhosted wallets, the proposed rule would have required institutions to disclose wallet addresses, transaction hashes, IP addresses, and customer identity information to regulators. FinCEN stated that it will continue to monitor mixing activities for signs of money laundering, terrorist financing, or other illicit behavior and may pursue future regulatory actions if warranted. The withdrawal marks a significant retreat by the Treasury in its efforts to regulate anonymizing services, reflecting the challenges of balancing financial transparency with innovation in decentralized systems.

A cross-border payments platform, Conduit Technology, filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Monday alleging that stablecoin issuer Tether froze $2.76 million in USDt without justification in September 2025. Conduit said the funds, held in its digital treasury wallet since May 2025, were seized despite having no legal claim or entitlement. The complaint stated that Tether’s action “materially impacted its business” and that the company was denied access to assets it unequivocally owned.

According to the filing, the freeze was linked to a Brazilian federal police investigation into the financial intermediary Bull Intermediação de Negócios and Onix, which began in 2024. Tether allegedly identified Conduit’s wallet as connected to those entities “on its own initiative using its own criteria,” freezing the funds on September 24, 2025. Conduit said it had repeatedly requested the release of the assets without success.

The lawsuit follows a separate case in which two Thai nationals sued Tether for allegedly freezing $42.4 million in USDt after an informal request from US Homeland Security Investigations. That seizure was tied to a $61 million pig butchering scheme under a warrant issued in February in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Tether has not commented on Conduit’s complaint as of Monday.

The filing underscores growing scrutiny of stablecoin operators’ control over funds, particularly when freezes occur without public criteria or appeal processes. While the legal merits remain untested, the case adds to a series of disputes involving asset freezes tied to regulatory investigations.

OKX announced that it has added Circle, Ripple, Qube Research & Technologies and Standard Chartered’s venture arm to its shareholder roster as part of a strategic investment round. The move coincides with the exchange’s push to broaden its stablecoin‑focused financial services. CEO Star Xu confirmed on October 6 that the round, valued at a $25 billion pre‑money valuation, also included participation from Intercontinental Exchange, which had led a $200 million investment in March. The valuation remained unchanged from the earlier round.

The new investors were selected for their alignment with OKX’s long‑term vision for stablecoins, payments infrastructure and institutional liquidity, rather than because the exchange required additional capital. Circle, which issues the USDC stablecoin, already integrates its token across OKX’s platform. Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin is available through OKX’s unified order book, and QRT provides institutional liquidity and risk capacity. Standard Chartered serves as custodian for BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized Treasury fund used in an institutional collateral framework developed with OKX.

The investment deepens OKX’s connections to firms that supply infrastructure across its ecosystem, from stablecoin issuance to custody and payments. Ripple said the partnership could expand cooperation in stablecoins, payments and institutional markets, while Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire described the transaction as a continuation of an existing relationship focused on on‑chain market infrastructure. QRT’s involvement adds an institutional trading component, and Standard Chartered’s venture arm offers OKX a link to a global bank as crypto firms seek to embed traditional financial assets on blockchain networks.

The composition of the round explains why OKX accepted new investors without raising a higher valuation seven months after ICE’s initial investment. The exchange is effectively adding partners positioned across several layers of the financial stack it aims to build, including stablecoin issuance, custody, liquidity and payments.

On Tuesday, OKX launched OKX Money, a standalone application that lets users save, send and spend dollar‑backed stablecoins. The app supports more than 50 fiat currencies and allows holdings of USDG, USDC or USDT. It integrates stablecoin balances with global transfers and virtual or physical cards, and it does not charge foreign‑exchange fees or conversion markups. Eligible users can earn up to 10 % annual yield on qualifying USDG balances without staking or lock‑up periods, and a loyalty program offers up to 10 % cashback on eligible card purchases. Availability, rates and features vary by market and customer eligibility.

OKX Money targets consumers who have not previously used crypto applications, a group the exchange estimates to represent roughly 70 % of its intended audience. The service will initially roll out in selected markets where currency volatility, limited banking access and high foreign‑exchange costs make holding or spending dollars challenging. Expansion will be gradual rather than immediate across all jurisdictions where OKX operates under regulatory frameworks.

The success of OKX Money will depend on whether the exchange can translate its infrastructure advantage and existing crypto customer base into everyday financial activity. Winning new users who are unfamiliar with crypto requires different distribution, compliance and support capabilities than those needed to run a trading venue. The new investors have their own incentives: Circle and Ripple seek broader stablecoin distribution, QRT aims to deepen institutional market access, and Standard Chartered is expanding its exposure to digital‑asset infrastructure. OKX now faces the challenge of demonstrating that these relationships can generate meaningful payment volumes and user adoption beyond the trading activity that originally built its platform.

A contributor to the Ethereum Economic Zone project announced that the initiative has executed what it describes as the first atomic cross-chain transaction linking Ethereum’s mainnet with a layer-2 network. The transaction, recorded on Tuesday, transferred 0.001 Ether and triggered a state update on the rollup, according to Eduardo Antuña Díez, who shared the logs publicly. In an atomic exchange, all components of the operation must complete successfully or the entire process is rolled back, ensuring that no partial state changes remain. The EEZ team has been developing a framework that enables rollups to communicate with each other and with Ethereum mainnet within a single transaction, eliminating the need for traditional bridging mechanisms. This approach is intended to restore integrated liquidity and application functionality across disparate layer-2 ecosystems. Earlier in March, developers involved in the project outlined their goal of creating a unified transaction layer that supports synchronous composability across chains. Friederike Ernst, a co-founder of Gnosis, had previously noted that the absence of such composability compels protocols to deploy separately on each layer-2, fragmenting liquidity and user access. Jakub Gregus, who leads the decentralized finance protocol Hydration, referred to the demonstration as a significant milestone with direct implications for Ethereum’s scalability architecture. The development represents a technical step toward reducing fragmentation in the Ethereum ecosystem, though broader adoption and long-term security considerations remain under evaluation.