regulation

Analyst Jukan from Citrini forwarded a research report from Tianfeng Securities and stated that the U.S. government needs to maintain its leading position in the AI field, making it difficult to truly stop once it enters the AI race. Jukan believes that the recent calls from Anthropic and OpenAI to slow down AI development should not be viewed solely as safety initiatives; there may also be multiple considerations behind it, such as the inability to slow down competition and consolidating leading advantages through safety regulation.Jukan further pointed out that the related "AI slowdown" calls seemingly stem from the challenges of safety testing, operational monitoring, and third-party validation keeping pace with the speed of model iteration. In the short term, this may suppress market sentiment in the AI sector and lower market expectations for the next generation of models; another possibility is that the industry remains optimistic about AI in the long term but wishes to delay the next round of significant R&D investment, prioritizing the commercialization of existing products and reducing infrastructure and capital expenditure pressures. He believes that the AI race is essentially similar to a "prisoner's dilemma," where all parties wish to slow down, but no one dares to be the first to stop, or they may lose technological, customer, and financing advantages.Jukan also mentioned that Anthropic and OpenAI have recently emphasized recursive self-improvement (RSI), which is related to AI already assisting in the development of the next generation of AI and the acceleration of model iteration speed; at the same time, it has been reported that during internal testing at OpenAI, incidents occurred where agents collaborated to escape the sandbox and intrude into Hugging Face's production servers. Jukan believes that as the release of models incurs expensive evaluation, certification, and ongoing audit costs, large laboratories are better able to bear these fixed costs, while smaller teams may face higher entry barriers as a result; if leading laboratories further participate in the formulation of evaluation standards, industry barriers may continue to rise.

The new regulations from the Central Bank of Brazil require virtual asset service providers to meet compliance requirements related to capital, auditing, anti-money laundering, and ongoing reporting, with capital requirements reaching up to 37.2 million reais, approximately 7.2 million US dollars. Currently, among about 300 related institutions, only 20 to 25 may meet the conditions to apply for authorization, and it is expected that only 10 will obtain licenses.Some small platforms have ended or restructured their retail operations, including Bitnuvem, NovaDAX, Digitra, and Coinext, but these platforms did not attribute their decisions to the new regulations. Institutions that fail to meet the requirements will also face ongoing compliance costs, and some businesses may struggle to maintain operations. Related institutions must apply for authorization by October 30, and those that do not apply will cease operations within 30 days and notify customers.Isabel Longhi, Head of Public and Regulatory Policy for Ripple Latin America, stated that market consolidation is expected to occur as the Brazilian crypto market matures, but the new regulations will limit innovation in the short term.

According to Cryptoslate, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Thailand has proposed a new regulation draft for stablecoins, allowing licensed crypto platforms to only permit customers to deposit or withdraw stablecoins from/to their verified accounts or wallets, prohibiting transfers to others' wallets.At the same time, a limit of 5 million Thai Baht (approximately 150,000 USD) per person per platform per day has been set. The proposal is currently in the public consultation stage, with comments due by September 25, and has not yet come into effect.

The head of research at digital asset management company Grayscale, Zach Pandl, stated in an analysis that even if Congress fails to pass the CLARITY Act this year, U.S. crypto regulation can still advance in areas such as stablecoins, token issuance, tokenized securities, and perpetual futures.U.S. President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act on July 18, 2025, establishing a regulatory framework for the issuance of payment stablecoins. The act requires issuers to provide sufficient reserves and publicly disclose the composition of reserves monthly, prohibiting misleading claims that tokens are federally insured, backed by the U.S. government, or considered legal tender. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, which aims to allow eligible projects to raise no more than $5 million over four years, or no more than $75 million every 12 months. Relevant exemptions and investment contract safe harbors are still in the proposal stage, with the public comment submission deadline set for October 20.The recent procedural milestone for the CLARITY Act was the termination debate vote on the motion to advance held on September 15, which requires 60 votes to pass and is not the final vote. Grayscale stated that the act would still help clarify the division of regulatory authority between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), but its failure to pass would not halt the regulatory measures already in progress.

According to the Financial Times, the UK cryptocurrency industry is entering the regulatory implementation phase. Zumo founder and CEO Nick Jones stated that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will open the application window for cryptocurrency asset authorization on September 30, with the new regulatory system expected to be officially implemented in October 2027.He pointed out that for a long time, regulatory uncertainty and counterparty risk have made financial institutions cautious about the UK cryptocurrency market, not due to a lack of interest in digital assets. As the regulatory path becomes clearer, traditional financial institutions such as the UK's largest retail investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown are beginning to enter the cryptocurrency market. The industry will gradually bid farewell to offshore operations, startup-style business processes, and unregulated models, and the importance of compliant infrastructure and local service providers will further increase.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) announced on Thursday that three issuers raised a total of 102.5 million rupees (approximately 10.72 million USD) through its Demat 2 pilot program by issuing tokenized corporate bonds. This pilot utilizes distributed ledger technology to issue, hold, and settle corporate bonds.REC Ltd. was the first to issue on September 7, raising 50 million rupees (approximately 5.23 million USD) from 18 investors; L&T Ltd. raised a similar amount from 4 investors on September 9, and IIFL raised 25 million rupees (approximately 2.6 million USD) from 1 investor on the same day. SEBI stated that the pilot infrastructure records corporate bonds in the form of native digital tokens on a distributed ledger owned by the depository and achieves atomic settlement of bonds and funds through a unified market interface connected to the Reserve Bank of India’s wholesale central bank digital currency.This mechanism can reduce settlement risks arising from the separation of securities and funds transfer, allowing issuers to receive funds on the same day as the bidding, whereas the existing process typically takes two to three days. The regulator noted that the information of bondholders on the shared ledger is instantly visible to all authorized entities, and at maturity, e₹ payments will go directly into the bondholders' central bank digital currency wallets. SEBI clarified that this pilot does not create a new category of corporate bonds; tokenized bonds retain the same ISIN, issuer obligations, coupon, maturity, covenants, ratings, and investor rights as traditional paperless bonds. The pilot will be implemented in three phases, with the first phase covering institutional issuance, while secondary trading and retail access will be conducted in subsequent phases within SEBI's regulatory sandbox.

Grayscale's research director Zach Pandl stated that the U.S. CLARITY Act, aimed at establishing comprehensive rules for the cryptocurrency market, will face a procedural vote in the Senate on September 15, requiring 60 votes in support. With the Republican Party currently holding 53 seats, the advancement of this bill still requires Democratic support, and market predictions indicate a low probability of its passage by 2026.However, Grayscale believes that even if the CLARITY Act fails to pass within the year, progress in U.S. cryptocurrency regulation will not stagnate. Regulatory frameworks in areas such as stablecoins, token issuance, tokenized securities, and perpetual futures have gradually become clearer. Among them, the GENIUS Act has established a federal framework for payment stablecoins, the proposed rules by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission may provide a clearer path for token financing, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has also opened regulated channels for perpetual futures through Kalshi and Coinbase.

The city council of Albuquerque, New Mexico, passed an ordinance on Wednesday prohibiting the operation of cryptocurrency ATMs (cryptocurrency vending machines) within the city limits, while also banning cashier-assisted virtual currency transactions. The city government will notify known operators and retailers hosting the machines, requiring them to remove the relevant equipment within 45 days.The ordinance was jointly initiated by District 1 Councilor Stephanie Telles and District 7 Councilor Tammy Fiebelkorn. Telles stated that 90% of cryptocurrency ATM transactions in Albuquerque are related to fraud, claiming that these machines are primarily exploited by scammers, organized crime, and human traffickers due to the instant, anonymous, and irreversible nature of transactions. Fiebelkorn remarked that we cannot wait for federal regulators to resolve the crisis. The city council emphasized that residents can still freely hold, mine, and transfer cryptocurrencies through online exchanges and personal wallets.In terms of background, Indiana banned such machines statewide in March, Tennessee in July, and Minnesota in August; Delaware has advanced related legislation, New Jersey is considering it, and Texas is also brewing a ban. One of North America's largest operators, Bitcoin Depot, filed for bankruptcy protection in May and removed about 9,700 machines. According to data from the FBI, nearly 11,000 complaints of vending machine fraud were received in 2024, involving amounts exceeding $246 million.

Crypto In America host Eleanor Terrett stated on X that the Republican Party of the U.S. Senate has released an updated text of the Clarity bill, reflecting changes from negotiations during the August recess.She noted that the ethical provisions section appears unchanged, and the provisions related to BRCA and stablecoin earnings remain the same.Changes include: requiring non-decentralized DeFi protocols to register with the CFTC, which aligns with Section 10301 of the Banking Committee's part of the bill; limiting DeFi provisions to spot or cash digital commodity trading, seemingly aimed at addressing tribal concerns about blockchain-based prediction markets; and clarifying the authority of credit unions to handle crypto assets.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a new rule last week to comprehensively revise the transfer agent rules that have been in place for decades, explicitly allowing electronic databases, including blockchain ledgers, to serve as the official record of securities ownership for the first time. If approved, blockchain is expected to become the "master security document," replacing the off-chain parallel ownership records that tokenized securities currently rely on.Currently, many tokenized securities operate on two sets of records: on-chain token ledgers and official shareholder registers. Once the proposal is passed, issuers and transfer agents may no longer need to maintain duplicate records and reconcile them after each transfer, thereby reducing operational friction and the risk of inconsistencies between on-chain records and legally recognized records. Eli Cohen, Chief Legal Officer of the tokenized fund platform Centrifuge, stated that this proposal could transform the current "two-step" process into a "one-step" process, allowing the blockchain itself to act as the master security document.However, the proposal does not mean that tokenized securities are completely "permissionless." Joris Delanoue, CEO of the registered on-chain transfer agent Fairmint, pointed out that while the blockchain can remain open, assets must still comply with ownership and transfer rules, and regulatory controls such as identity verification and transfer restrictions are still embedded in the tokens. Transfer agents will still need to handle administrative matters such as shareholder death, inheritance, and legal notifications, with processing times potentially reduced from 3-5 days to 1 day. The 60-day public comment period for the proposal will end in early November.

Bitcoin Magazine reported that White House advisor Patrick Witt stated that they have made progress on all concerns regarding the Clarity Act bill.Witt said, "Feeling pretty good about this."

According to CoinDesk, after the bankruptcy of Bitcoin ATM operator Bitcoin Depot, about a quarter of its more than 9,200 self-service terminals have been sold. The publicly traded digital asset infrastructure company Bitcoin Bancorp (BCBC) won 2,547 of these ATMs for $620,750 and additionally paid $110,500 to acquire related site agreements, intellectual property, trademarks, patents, and the BitcoinDepot.com domain name.Bitcoin Depot filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May of this year, after its first-quarter revenue fell 49% year-over-year, with profits turning from a $12.2 million gain to a $9.5 million loss. In its last complete financial report before bankruptcy (fourth quarter of 2025), the company valued all properties and equipment (of which 98% were self-service terminals) at over $26 million.Bitcoin Bancorp, headquartered in Las Vegas and formerly known as Bullet Blockchain, trades at $0.04 on the OTC Markets, with a market capitalization of about $18.5 million, far below Bitcoin Depot's peak of about $400 million when it was listed on Nasdaq. The company stated that the remaining deliveries are expected to be completed in the next quarter. Data shows that losses from crypto ATM scams reached $389 million in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 58%. The UK's FCA has announced that crypto ATMs are illegal, and regulators in countries such as Australia and Canada have also intensified their crackdowns.

According to CoinDesk, European financial and cryptocurrency industry organizations have written to the EU Council and the European Parliament, urging lawmakers to remove the cap on the scale of tokenized securities platforms or set it at least at €1.5 trillion (approximately $1.74 trillion), arguing that the €100 billion cap proposed by the European Commission will hinder industry development. Signatories include the French Digital Asset Association Adan, Crypto Council for Innovation, the European Ethereum Institute, as well as companies like Nasdaq and Boerse Stuttgart.The EU's distributed ledger pilot regime allows operators to test the trading and settlement of tokenized stocks, bonds, and investment funds while exempting some existing financial rules. After observing "moderate" participation, the European Commission proposed to expand the pilot framework and raise the current €6 billion cap to €100 billion. Adan stated that considering the development of the global market, this increase is still insufficient, and their preferred option is to completely remove the cap or at least set it to €1.5 trillion, which is 15 times the proposed cap.The joint letter pointed out that some existing European projects have reached a scale of €350 billion and plan to grow further, but did not disclose specific projects or calculation methods. The letter also emphasized that the relevant threshold targets the market capitalization of admitted securities rather than trading volume and opposed giving central securities depositories a significantly higher differentiated cap than other blockchain market operators, arguing that this would be detrimental to emerging service providers.The alliance also compared the restrictive measures in Europe with an unnamed mainstream settlement platform in the United States, which can tokenize assets like stocks without a trading volume cap; if the cap is retained, the alliance hopes the Commission can flexibly raise it as the market grows, without presetting a maximum limit.

According to The Block, Citadel Securities urged the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in a letter dated September 9 to reaffirm the SEC's regulatory authority over products related to U.S. publicly traded companies and their securities.The letter responds to the CFTC's self-certification process for event contracts. Citadel believes that event contracts associated with publicly traded companies should fall under the SEC's regulatory scope to ensure a clear and consistent regulatory framework for related products.

According to Decrypt, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated in an interview with CNBC Squawk Box Asia that a Bitcoin price of $400,000 by 2030 is still a "reasonable goal," despite the current BTC price being around $77,000. He cited the four-year cycle pattern of Bitcoin, noting that the current downturn has lasted about a year, and said, "I personally believe that the bottom of this cycle for Bitcoin has already occurred." He also mentioned that typically there is a price increase before Bitcoin halving, which is expected to occur in about 18 months, stating, "The next one or two years will be a good time for Bitcoin."On the regulatory front, Armstrong is more optimistic about progress in Washington. The U.S. Senate will vote on the Clarity Act on September 15, and he stated that the bill is "ready to pass," with support from law enforcement agencies, several banks, and crypto companies, and the objections previously raised by Coinbase have been resolved. The remaining disagreement concerns the ethical rules regarding the president's family's crypto business, and negotiations are close to reaching a solution. Armstrong expects that regardless of whether the bill passes, there will be regulatory clarity within a month, as the SEC and CFTC have indicated they are ready to issue rules and innovation exemptions based on existing authority.He also cited last year's Genius Act as an example, stating that within three months of the bill's passage, over 150 large companies integrated stablecoins. If the Clarity Act passes, U.S. customers will be able to access tokenized stocks and perpetual contracts.

U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis stated that the recent lawsuit against Tether for freezing $42.4 million in USDT highlights the regulatory gaps in the current crackdown on illegal financial activities in the cryptocurrency industry. She pointed out that stablecoin issuers and trading platforms may face civil litigation risks if they freeze related assets due to suspicions of illegal activities.Lummis indicated that Section 305 of the "Digital Asset Market Structure Clear Act" would grant stablecoin issuers and trading platforms the necessary authority to promptly freeze stablecoins suspected of being involved in illegal activities while avoiding civil liability as a result.She believes that this provision can help the cryptocurrency industry more effectively prevent the flow of illegal funds and address the legal risks faced by issuers and trading platforms when taking compliance measures.

WalletConnect released a 68-page report titled "Current Status of Policy, Compliance, and Regulation," outlining global regulatory progress in areas such as payments, DeFi, trading, custody, and tokenization. The report indicates that discussions on cryptocurrency regulation in major markets have shifted from "whether to regulate" to "how to implement," with relevant frameworks transitioning from legislation to actual enforcement at different speeds, but cross-border rules remain highly fragmented.The report points out that the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) will be fully applicable from December 2024, with the national transition period ending on July 1, 2026; currently, there are about 330 authorized crypto asset service providers in the ESMA temporary register, and over 1,000 companies that were reported to have failed to obtain authorization before the deadline prior to MiCA's implementation. Hong Kong will issue the first batch of stablecoin issuer licenses in April 2026, and Japan's revised Payment Services Act will take effect in June of the same year. Although the U.S. GENIUS Act has become law, the relevant system will not be fully effective until January 18, 2027, and broader market structure legislation is still pending.WalletConnect states that jurisdictions are increasingly adopting a "regulated touchpoint responsibility" model, meaning that issuers and service providers must still fulfill anti-money laundering, sanctions screening, travel rule, and record-keeping obligations when interacting with self-custody addresses. Tools such as sanctions screening, on-chain analysis, address control verification, and reusable identity credentials have been used in some businesses, demonstrating that compliance and self-custody are not mutually exclusive; however, how to regulate decentralized software and protocols remains unresolved, and DeFi continues to be a major frontier issue for global regulation.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated that regardless of the outcome of the U.S. Senate vote on the Clarity Act on September 15, the cryptocurrency industry will gain regulatory clarity. In an interview with CNBC, he mentioned that if the bill passes, the industry will receive legislative support; even if it does not pass, the SEC and CFTC have indicated their readiness to issue rules, and the industry will still gain regulatory clarity around the time of the vote.The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act aims to establish a federal regulatory framework for cryptocurrency exchanges, brokers, and stablecoins by dividing token regulatory authority between the SEC and CFTC. Armstrong noted that the bill has broad bipartisan and industry support, with law enforcement agencies, banks, and cryptocurrency companies all expressing their backing. Key issues previously raised by Coinbase have been resolved. The only outstanding matter is the ethical provisions concerning elected officials holding digital assets; the White House has proposed a plan that includes strong ethical clauses, while Democrats are pushing for further measures, including mandatory asset divestiture, with both sides nearing a resolution.In response to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon's criticism regarding Coinbase's regulatory arbitrage using the bill's stablecoin provisions, Armstrong remarked that critics with large payment businesses are facing "competitive issues" and are "speaking for themselves." He also stated that Goldman Sachs, Bank of New York Mellon, and Fidelity all support the bill.

According to the New York Times, regulators are investigating the licensing agreement reached between Nvidia and Groq.