ban

The custodian service provider Fireblocks will be responsible for the issuance and distribution of the euro stablecoin by the Qivalis consortium, which is expected to launch in the second half of 2026, regulated by the Dutch central bank and in compliance with the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR).Qivalis members include 12 European banks such as BBVA, BNP Paribas, ING, and UniCredit. Reports indicate that the current stablecoin market size is approximately $305 billion, of which about 99% are dollar stablecoins, and the euro stablecoin market size is around $650 million. Qivalis plans to enhance the application of euro stablecoins in institutional scenarios with compliant products.

According to The Block, the new governor of the Bank of Korea, Shin Hyun-song, delivered an inaugural speech promising to promote the development of central bank digital currency (CBDC) and deposit tokens, and will expand related applications through the "Han River Project" Phase Two, while participating in global collaborations such as Project Agora to strengthen the position of the Korean won in the global payment system.It is noteworthy that Shin Hyun-song did not mention the Korean won stablecoin in his speech, despite South Korean legislators actively advancing the "Digital Asset Basic Law" to establish a legal framework for stablecoins, with discussions expected to resume after the regional elections on June 3. Previously, during his tenure at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Shin held a negative attitude towards stablecoins, believing that stablecoins could not replace currency, but it has been reported that his stance has changed, stating that the Korean won stablecoin should coexist with CBDC.

Lion Global Investors, an asset management company under Singapore's OCBC Bank, has launched a tokenized physical gold fund, with the underlying token GOLDX issued on Ethereum and Solana.This product is aimed at institutional investors, hedge funds, and asset management companies, supporting subscriptions and redemptions through stablecoins or fiat currency. GOLDX is linked to the physical gold fund launched by Lion Global, which is set to go live in December 2025, and currently manages assets of approximately $525 million.

ChainCatcher reported live that HashKey Group Chairman Xiao Feng shared a keynote speech titled "Innovation of Economic Models for Intelligent Agents—The Fusion Revolution of AI Tokens, Blockchain Tokens, and Fully Homomorphic Encryption" at this year's 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival. He pointed out that the two major business characteristics of blockchain technology are trustlessness and permissionlessness, but public transparency leads to data exposure, making it difficult for compliant institutions like banks to directly go on-chain. With fully homomorphic encryption chips expected to be launched in the second half of this year, achieving performance of about 1000 transactions per second, privacy computing technology is about to reach commercial thresholds.He proposed that the fusion of AI Tokens, blockchain Tokens, zero-knowledge proofs, and fully homomorphic encryption technology is the ultimate form of the intelligent agent economy. He used hospitals as an example: medical data, after being fully homomorphically encrypted, becomes Tokens, and anyone can call the data for computation through the blockchain in a permissionless manner, but cannot access personal privacy information, thus turning hospitals into "Token factories." Individuals can also put their encrypted health check data on-chain, issuing demands to global insurance companies, which can calculate and provide personalized optimal insurance plans in an encrypted state using their actuarial models, eliminating the need for insurance brokers and intermediaries.He specifically corrected a common misunderstanding: AI Tokens are not the currency unit of the intelligent agent economy, but rather the means of production, encompassing everything from electricity, chip computing power, to large models, algorithms, and applications, depicting the production process of intelligent agents. The currency of the intelligent agent economy must be programmable, divisible, and capable of real-time settlement, because when AI Agents call APIs, they may only need a few cents each time, and the costs of existing banking payment systems cannot support such small payments. Digital currency is the "blood" of the intelligent agent economy, and a brand new financial service system designed for machines rather than humans will definitely emerge in the future.

Nik Storonsky, CEO of Europe's largest fintech company Revolut, recently stated in an interview with David Rubenstein that the company's IPO plan will take at least another two years, with the earliest listing expected in 2028. Before going public, the company will continue to provide liquidity to employees and early investors through secondary equity sales. It is reported that a new round of secondary transactions may start in 2026, with the company's latest valuation reaching $75 billion.Meanwhile, Revolut is actively expanding into the U.S. market and has completed its second application for a U.S. banking license. If approved, it will be able to directly access the Federal Reserve payment system and offer loans and credit card services to U.S. users.

According to The Block, Thom Tillis, a key negotiator for the U.S. Senate Banking Committee and a Republican senator from North Carolina, stated that the committee is unlikely to schedule a hearing to revise and vote on the cryptocurrency market structure bill within April.The main disagreement in the current legislation centers on how to handle rewards for stablecoins. The existing draft proposes to prohibit rewards for idle stablecoin accounts but allows earnings from trading activities; banking representatives are concerned that such earnings will attract deposits away from traditional banks, while cryptocurrency companies argue that limiting rewards will hinder innovation. Tillis suggested that the committee postpone the review until May.Previously, Senator Bernie Moreno warned that if the bill fails to pass before May, "digital asset legislation will not advance in the foreseeable future."

According to Jinshi reports, European Central Bank President Lagarde stated that if extensive fiscal support is implemented, it will force the European Central Bank to further raise key interest rates.

According to Crypto In America, the U.S. CLARITY Act has entered a critical negotiation period this week, and whether it will receive the long-awaited committee review in April or be postponed until May will depend on recent progress. The Senate Banking Committee will focus on the confirmation hearing of Federal Reserve Chair nominee Kevin Walsh at the beginning of the week. After that, the committee must decide by Friday whether to notify the review of the bill in order to hold a vote in the week of April 27.The banking group represented by the North Carolina Bankers Association is lobbying against the stablecoin yield restriction provisions in the bill, urging members to call Senator Thom Tillis's office to request amendments. It is reported that industry groups are also reaching out to other committee members.After more than two months of negotiations, crypto companies and banks reached a compromise at the end of last month, which the crypto industry is generally satisfied with. However, after the White House Council of Economic Advisers report downplayed the risks of stablecoin yields to the banking system, calls for amendments from the banking side have intensified.Patrick Witt, Executive Director of the White House Crypto Council, criticized banks on the X platform for "further lobbying out of greed or ignorance." Senator Tillis proposed holding an in-person "crypto carnival" meeting, but this may extend the timeline. He emphasized that there are still issues to negotiate but expressed optimism about scheduling the review in the coming weeks.In addition to yield issues, the bill also needs to address ethical and DeFi-related provisions. This week's progress will determine the fate of the bill, and the market is highly attentive.

According to five sources familiar with the Bank of Japan's thinking, it is unlikely that the Bank of Japan will raise interest rates next week. The diminishing hope for a quick end to the Middle East conflict has left Japan's economic and price outlook still full of uncertainty. Although the final decision still carries some uncertainty and will depend on the progress of peace negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, the aforementioned sources stated that the central bank is inclined to maintain the status quo this month to allow more time to assess the impact of this conflict.One source said, "Given the current level of uncertainty, the Bank of Japan may consider it feasible to maintain the status quo this month." Another source expressed the same view. A third source stated that the Bank of Japan is unlikely to raise interest rates because the market has already fully priced in the possibility of no rate hike this month. These sources indicated that even if the Bank of Japan keeps interest rates unchanged next week, given the escalating inflationary pressures, the bank is likely to signal its readiness to raise rates as early as June.

Pablo Hernandez de Cos, General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), stated that global coordination on stablecoin regulation is crucial to prevent severe market fragmentation; otherwise, regulatory differences across jurisdictions could lead to regulatory arbitrage.He pointed out that stablecoins are typically pegged to the US dollar at a 1:1 ratio, which could undermine monetary and fiscal policy, trigger pressures in financial markets, and hinder efforts to combat illegal financing. Currently, the two major stablecoins issued by Tether and Circle account for about 85% of the global circulation of stablecoins, which is approximately $315 billion. He also mentioned that these two types of stablecoins are closer to securities rather than currencies in terms of redemption friction and operate more like ETFs.

According to TheAsianBanker, OCBC Bank in Singapore and its asset management division Lion Global Investors have disclosed plans to issue a physical gold fund token, GOLDX Token, on the Ethereum and Solana chains. OCBC Bank will support the token issuance architecture design, while Lion Global Investors will provide the investment framework and governance structure for the underlying fund.

ChainCatcher reported live that Fan Wenzhong, Executive Director of the Chinese Financial Society and former Chairman of Beijing Financial Holdings Group, delivered a keynote speech at the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival. He pointed out that we are currently at a historical turning point similar to the transition from pawnshops to modern banking, where AI is an advanced productive force in the physical world, and Web3 represents a new type of production relationship in the digital world. The integration of the two will give rise to a Decentralized Agent Economy (DAE).He analyzed that AI Agents have execution capabilities but lack independent identity, accounts, and trust mechanisms, while Web3 addresses these pain points through smart contracts, on-chain identities, and programmable currencies; conversely, AI Agents significantly lower the barriers to using Web3. He proposed that DAE has four major characteristics: agent sovereignty and 24/7 operation, high-frequency atomic exchanges, a collaboration mechanism based on technological trust rather than moral or legal frameworks, and the organizational evolution from companies to DAOs and then to Decentralized AI Companies (DACs).He warned that this transformation will impact the labor market, with white-collar workers being replaced before blue-collar workers. AI quantitative funds have already achieved returns far exceeding those of retail investors, and he suggested that the government proactively advance social security reforms. Finally, he recommended that Hong Kong develop a self-controllable high-performance public chain, pilot limited digital persona registrations, attract Web3+AI composite talents, establish a digital finance industry fund, and promote collaborative innovation between the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin and digital renminbi.

According to Cointelegraph, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has urged banks to strengthen their cybersecurity defenses due to heightened regulatory concerns arising from the spread of the Mythos AI model under Anthropic in the Asia region.

At the "Crypto 2026: From Cryptocurrency to Smart Economy" themed forum held in Hong Kong, Gongye Feng, co-founder and CEO of Monera Digital, delivered a keynote speech titled "AI Empowered Private Banking for the Smart Economy."Feng pointed out that what disappeared after 2022 was not the demand for digital assets, but the market's confidence in the ways capital could enter. Monera Digital positions itself as an AI private bank for the smart economy, with the core not being to use AI as traders, but to act as an accelerator, compressing the research, testing, and iteration cycles from months to days.He emphasized that risk control must be institutionalized rather than personalized. Monera has built four lines of defense: source constraints on exposure and collateral, automated clearing and margin management, complete segregation of client assets, and eliminating maturity mismatches while maintaining liquidity buffers. Additionally, AI plays the role of a 24/7 digital CRO, achieving a leap from passive monitoring to proactive warning.In terms of service model, Monera does not operate as a pure technology platform, but insists on "anti-AI illusion," where AI is responsible for optimization and efficiency, while trust, responsibility, and continuity of relationships are still borne by humans. Feng believes that the prerequisite for crypto assets to truly become configurable assets is to translate complexity into clear, continuous, and trustworthy private banking services.

According to Nikkei News, Japan has approved amendments to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA), classifying digital assets as financial instruments and prohibiting insider trading based on non-public information.

According to Jinshi reports, Federal Reserve Governor Waller stated that compared to the shocks of the 1970s, central bank officials today have a better understanding of the importance of inflation expectations.

Bank of AI and the Peking University Blockchain Association PKUBlockchain have officially released their first research report titled "Web4.0: When AI Agents Become Economic Entities------Infrastructure, Track Patterns, and Investment Outlook." The report systematically outlines the three-layer infrastructure gaps of the x402 payment protocol, ERC-8004 identity standard, and MCP tool invocation protocol, and focuses on how Bank of AI can package five core components into a one-stop Agent financial operating system, becoming a typical case of a closed-loop from protocol to product. The research report points out that the daily average transaction volume on the TRON chain exceeds $22 billion, with a circulation of $86 billion USDT, providing a scalable foundation for high-frequency micro-settlement for Agents. Both parties will continue to promote the coordinated development of Web4.0 infrastructure and the agent economy.

The enterprise-focused digital banking platform Slash announced the completion of a $100 million Series C financing round, led by Ribbit Capital, with Goodwater Capital and Khosla Ventures co-leading. The post-money valuation is approximately $1.4 billion, with total financing reaching $160 million.Slash claims to serve over 5,000 corporate clients, offering features such as corporate accounts, virtual accounts, stablecoin payments, expense management, accounting automation, and real-time payments. The company stated it will use the new funds to accelerate product iteration and promote its strategy of "bank accounts as the financial command center for businesses."