Author: Oliver Torsney

A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced long-awaited legislation aimed at defining how cryptocurrency markets should be regulated, a move that could reshape global crypto oversight just as Europe presses ahead with the digital euro and MiCA implementation. The bill, unveiled on Tuesday, seeks to draw clearer boundaries between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, assigning the CFTC a central role in overseeing most crypto spot markets. Lawmakers argue that years of regulatory uncertainty have pushed innovation offshore and left firms navigating conflicting enforcement actions. According to Reuters, the proposal is the product of…

World Liberty Financial, a US crypto firm that says US President Donald Trump is a “co-founder emeritus”, has launched a crypto lending and borrowing platform aimed at expanding the use of its dollar-backed stablecoin, USD1. The move underlines how stablecoin issuers are increasingly building financial services around their tokens as competition with traditional payment and banking infrastructure intensifies. The new service, called World Liberty Markets, allows users to lend and borrow digital assets directly with one another. At launch, it supports the firm’s own USD1 stablecoin and WLFI governance token, alongside Ether, tokenised Bitcoin, and the two largest third-party stablecoins,…

A group of US Republican senators has renewed efforts to block the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency, reviving a debate that stands in stark contrast to how the digital euro is being designed and discussed in Europe. The move matters beyond Washington because it highlights fundamentally different political assumptions about state-issued digital money on either side of the Atlantic. In a press release dated 12 January 2026, Jon Husted announced his support for the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, legislation that would prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a retail digital dollar. The bill is led by…

BNY Mellon has taken a notable step in the evolution of digital money by launching tokenized deposits for institutional clients, signalling how major banks are adapting traditional cash to blockchain-based financial markets. The initiative allows eligible clients to use on-chain representations of bank deposits for settlement, collateral and margin workflows, without changing the legal nature of bank money. The new service, announced this week, enables institutional clients of BNY Mellon to access digital representations of their existing deposit balances on a permissioned blockchain operated by the bank. The underlying deposits remain conventional bank liabilities, recorded on BNY’s core systems, while…

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell has said a US Department of Justice investigation into his conduct is politically motivated, linking the probe to his refusal to bow to pressure from President Donald Trump to cut interest rates. Speaking publicly about the case, Powell said the investigation follows subpoenas issued after his June testimony to Congress and concerns a costly renovation of Federal Reserve buildings. He denied misleading lawmakers and argued the scrutiny is instead connected to long-running political attacks on the Fed’s monetary policy stance. According to reporting by Cointelegraph, Powell suggested the probe reflects frustration within the Trump administration…

The scale and nature of crypto-related crime changed markedly in 2025. According to new analysis from Chainalysis, illicit activity on public blockchains reached record levels, driven less by retail scams and more by state-aligned actors using crypto as financial infrastructure. The shift matters for Europe because it reframes digital currencies not just as a market issue, but as a question of monetary sovereignty and security. Chainalysis estimates that illicit crypto addresses received at least $154 billion in value in 2025, a sharp increase on the previous year. While this still represents less than one percent of total on-chain activity, the…

World Liberty Financial has taken a significant regulatory step by applying for a US national trust bank charter, signalling its ambition to operate USD1, its dollar-pegged stablecoin, within the core of the American banking system. The company confirmed that its subsidiary, WLTC Holdings, has submitted an application to the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish World Liberty Trust Company, a national trust bank. If approved, the structure would allow World Liberty to issue, redeem, and custody USD1 directly, rather than relying on third-party banking and custody partners. The move places World Liberty Financial alongside a growing…

The National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah has received in-principle approval from the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates to issue a stablecoin backed by the UAE dirham, marking another step in the country’s push to integrate blockchain-based money into its regulated financial system. According to a statement published by Zawya, RAKBANK has secured conditional authorisation to proceed with the project, subject to meeting remaining regulatory and operational requirements set by the central bank. The planned stablecoin will be pegged one-to-one to the dirham and fully backed by AED reserves. The bank said the token will be supported by…

European banks are no longer asking whether artificial intelligence belongs in financial crime and compliance. According to a new industry report, the debate has shifted to how quickly and safely AI can be scaled across fraud prevention, anti-money laundering and regulatory reporting, with clear implications for payments, digital money and future public infrastructure such as the digital euro. The study, published by Chartis Research in collaboration with Hawk, finds that almost all banks now use AI in some form across their financial crime and compliance functions. However, most deployments remain limited to pilots or early production use, highlighting a gap…

The digital ruble is increasingly being viewed as a future competitor to Russia’s Mir card system, according to market analysts, highlighting how central bank digital currencies could disrupt even domestically dominant payment networks. Commenting on the outlook for Russian payments, analysts cited by local financial media argue that once the digital ruble is fully rolled out, it could absorb a growing share of everyday retail transactions that currently flow through bank cards. The digital ruble is being developed by the Bank of Russia as a third form of money alongside cash and non-cash bank deposits. Mir cards rose rapidly after…