India’s Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) has condemned a government order requiring GitHub to remove repositories linked to Jack Dorsey’s decentralized messaging app, BitChat, calling the action unconstitutional and a threat to both free speech and open-source development.

The dispute centers on how the Indian government justified the takedown. According to IFF, the order used Section 79(3)(b) of India’s Information Technology Act rather than the country’s formal website-blocking route, a process IFF says includes procedural safeguards. The group urged authorities to withdraw the notice and disclose all takedown orders issued under the same provision.

Key takeaways

• IFF says the BitChat-related GitHub removal order should have followed India’s formal website-blocking process rather than Section 79(3)(b).
• The cybercrime agency’s directive reportedly demanded GitHub disable access to three BitChat repositories within three hours.
• Iff argues the order fails to identify unlawful content, instead targeting BitChat’s decentralized design as the basis for removal.
• BitChat routes encrypted messages between nearby devices via Bluetooth without relying on internet connectivity or centralized servers.
• Adoption of BitChat has reportedly increased during internet shutdowns and unrest in multiple countries since its release in July 2025.

GitHub repositories ordered removed over “internet shutdown” concerns

A day before IFF’s public response, India’s cybercrime agency ordered GitHub to disable access to three BitChat repositories within a three-hour window. The rationale provided, according to IFF’s account, was that the decentralized messaging app could be used to circumvent internet shutdowns, evade lawful surveillance, and enable unlawful activity.

BitChat’s core design is meant to reduce dependence on the public internet. Instead of routing messages through centralized servers or requiring continuous connectivity, the app can relay encrypted communications between nearby devices over Bluetooth. In practical terms, that means it can function even when mobile networks or internet service are disrupted—an attribute that has historically drawn both interest from users in restrictive environments and scrutiny from authorities concerned about oversight.

IFF challenges the legal route and the lack of identified unlawful content

In its statement posted on X, IFF argued that the government’s approach exceeded its legal authority. The group said the order was issued under Section 79(3)(b) of India’s Information Technology Act, rather than through India’s formal website-blocking mechanism, which IFF says includes procedural safeguards.

IFF’s position is that this difference in process matters, because the method chosen can affect transparency and the ability to contest a removal. The organization also asked the government to withdraw the notice and to publish all takedown orders made under the provision, framing the request as a transparency measure rather than a technical objection.

Just as importantly, IFF disputed the substance of the justification. The group said the order did not point to specific unlawful content inside the repositories. Instead, IFF claimed the government’s case treated BitChat’s decentralized architecture itself—particularly its ability to support peer-to-peer communication over Bluetooth without internet access—as grounds for removal.

That framing has wide implications for open-source ecosystems. When takedowns are based on functionality rather than identifiable prohibited material, developers and maintainers may face broader uncertainty about what features are permissible to publish.

Why decentralized messaging has become a flashpoint during shutdowns

Since its release in July 2025, BitChat has reportedly seen rising adoption during periods of unrest, natural disasters, and internet outages. Earlier coverage from Cointelegraph described how the app’s Bluetooth-relay approach can help communities communicate without relying on internet infrastructure. According to Cointelegraph’s reporting cited in the original coverage, adoption surged in countries including Madagascar, Nepal, Uganda, Jamaica, and Iran.

That pattern is notable because it illustrates the tension between emergency communications and state control. In scenarios where networks fail or governments restrict connectivity, tools that operate without centralized infrastructure can become valuable—especially for coordination when traditional channels are unreliable. At the same time, governments often view the same resilience as a way for users to evade monitoring and shutdown measures.

For investors and builders in crypto-adjacent infrastructure—particularly those focused on privacy, censorship resistance, and decentralized networking—the BitChat dispute underscores a broader regulatory reality: decentralization can increase both technical robustness and legal risk, depending on how authorities interpret existing cyber and communications laws.

While this case concerns GitHub repositories rather than a blockchain protocol directly, it sits within a familiar policy theme affecting the wider decentralized tech stack: when software can keep working despite shutdown attempts, regulators may treat the code as part of the threat model.

What to watch next after the GitHub order

For now, the immediate question is whether GitHub access to the affected repositories remains disabled and whether the government provides further specificity on what it considers unlawful. IFF’s demands for withdrawal and transparency—especially publication of all takedown orders under Section 79(3)(b)—could determine how quickly this dispute escalates into a wider debate about constitutional limits and administrative procedure.

Beyond the legal arguments, readers should watch for how this case influences developer practices—particularly how open-source teams decide what to publish, document, or mirror when their tools may be interpreted by regulators as enabling circumvention during shutdowns.

Earlier reporting on BitChat’s launch and design is available via Cointelegraph, and context on adoption during protests and outages was also covered by Cointelegraph in articles including Nepal-related coverage, Jamaica-related coverage, and global unrest adoption coverage.

Lombard Finance has launched its Bitcoin Onchain Credit Strategy with Flow Traders as an early institutional participant.

The product lets the market maker borrow stablecoins without posting its own collateral directly onchain. Instead, Bitcoin supplied through Lombard’s Bitcoin Earn vault provides separate collateral coverage through Cap’s credit platform.

The model connects Flow Traders’ demand for stablecoin financing with Bitcoin holders seeking yield. Borrowing premiums paid by the trading firm flow to depositors whose assets support the credit. Lombard said the new allocation sits inside Bitcoin Earn, which has recorded more than $1 billion in deposits from over 38,500 users.

Flow Traders borrows through Bitcoin depositors

Flow Traders accesses stablecoins through Cap’s automated credit marketplace on Ethereum. Bitcoin Earn depositors supply the assets that cover the loan, while Symbiotic provides the shared-security layer. Cap’s documents say approved operators can borrow reserve assets after receiving enough collateral from delegators. Each operator receives isolated coverage rather than sharing the same collateral across several borrowers.

If a covered loan falls below its required safety level, Cap can liquidate or slash the delegated assets to repay debt. Lombard CEO Jacob Phillips said, “By separating the borrower from the collateral provider, the parties involved have made it possible for regulated, institutional trading firms to tap into onchain credit for the first time.”

Flow Traders executive Michael Lie said the strategy links Bitcoin holders with financing demand that is “less correlated to DeFi market conditions.”Flow Traders has traded digital assets since 2017 and provides liquidity across exchange-based and bilateral institutional markets.

Bitcoin Earn adds institutional credit premiums

Bitcoin Earn operates as a managed meta-vault. Users can deposit LBTC, BTC.b, WBTC or native Bitcoin and receive BTCe receipt tokens. Professional managers allocate the pooled assets across several strategies rather than one lending market. Sentora manages the initial vault, while Veda supplies its infrastructure.

Lombard launched Bitcoin Earn in February 2026 as a managed Bitcoin yield product. The new credit strategy becomes one allocation within that structure. Flow Traders’ fixed annualized premium adds another source of return alongside other vault strategies, whose yields can change with market conditions.

Lombard’s documentation says BTCe withdrawals may take up to 14 days and settle in LBTC, regardless of the asset originally deposited. The company also lists smart contract, strategy and liquidity risks. Audits may reduce technical risk, but they cannot remove the chance of code failures, losses or delayed withdrawals.

Cap also states that delegators face slashing risk if an operator becomes undercollateralized. The yield therefore reflects defined credit and technical exposure rather than a guaranteed return. Cap’s risk disclosures warn that malicious or undercollateralized operators may put delegated assets at risk.

Chainlink moves BTC.b into the Ethereum vault

Lombard uses Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol to move BTC.b from Avalanche into the Ethereum vault used by the strategy. CCIP lets supported applications transfer tokens and messages between blockchains. This allows the credit product to draw Bitcoin liquidity from Avalanche while Cap manages borrowing on Ethereum.

The cross-chain step follows Lombard’s May decision to use CCIP for more than $1 billion in LBTC and BTC.b assets. The company said the change aimed to standardize transfers as its Bitcoin products expanded across more networks.

As crypto.news reported, Lombard moved LBTC and BTC.b to Chainlink CCIP as its exclusive cross-chain infrastructure after reviewing its bridge setup. Lombard said the migration replaced LayerZero across several networks.

The BTC.b route follows Lombard’s acquisition of the asset and its infrastructure from Ava Labs in October 2025. As previously reported, the deal included BTC.b’s existing Avalanche integrations and user base. Lombard planned to expand the 1:1 Bitcoin asset to Ethereum, Solana and other networks.

Pilot tests a different lending structure

Traditional DeFi loans usually require borrowers to post more collateral than they receive. Lombard’s structure separates the borrower from the collateral provider. Flow Traders receives stablecoins, Bitcoin Earn depositors provide coverage, and Cap’s contracts track the loan, collateral level and possible liquidation.

The setup does not remove lending risk. It depends on Lombard’s vaults, Cap’s credit contracts, Symbiotic’s collateral system, Chainlink’s cross-chain service and Flow Traders meeting its repayment duties. Problems in any connected system could affect returns, withdrawals or deposited assets.

Lombard has not disclosed the pilot loan’s size, duration, stablecoin type or interest rate. It has also not named other borrowers. The launch extends Lombard’s Bitcoin products beyond staking and standard DeFi lending, while testing whether Bitcoin depositors can support institutional stablecoin credit through an onchain structure.

ICBC has completed China’s first digital yuan cross-border payment with Singapore through the newly upgraded Digital Currency Express platform, settling nearly 10 million yuan in import shipping fees with same-day fund delivery.

According to Mobile Payment Network, the transaction was jointly completed by the Shanghai branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and ICBC Singapore, becoming the first China-Singapore cross-border payment to run through the Digital Currency Express (CBETS) comprehensive settlement platform. 

The payment covered nearly 10 million yuan in import shipping costs and was settled entirely in digital renminbi, with the funds reaching the Singapore recipient’s account on the same day.

The report said the transaction was completed for W Company, a subsidiary of a centrally owned enterprise’s trading platform that regularly imports iron ore and pays overseas shipping charges. 

Because the company frequently handles large-value cross-border settlements, it previously relied on conventional international transfers that involved multiple intermediary banks, longer processing times and foreign exchange costs.

ICBC Shanghai introduced the company to the Digital Currency Express platform as an alternative settlement method before working with its Singapore branch to complete the payment. According to the report, the transaction demonstrates how digital yuan settlement can shorten payment processing while providing direct visibility into cross-border fund transfers.

Beyond the individual payment, the development expands ICBC’s use of China’s international digital yuan infrastructure. Mobile Payment Network said the bank has now established integrated digital yuan payment and collection services with both Singapore and Laos through the CBETS platform, creating a unified cross-border settlement framework linking its domestic and overseas branches.

CBETS expands China’s digital yuan payment network

The Digital Currency Express platform was built by the International Operation Center of the digital renminbi under the guidance of the People’s Bank of China’s Digital Currency Research Institute. According to Mobile Payment Network, the platform was upgraded in 2026 after China’s digital yuan infrastructure was reorganized, combining the previous cross-border payment platform, blockchain service platform, and digital asset platform into a single settlement network.

Overseas financial institutions can connect through a Hong Kong access point known as “One Point Access,” allowing participants to access multiple services through a single gateway. The platform supports both centralized and blockchain-based systems while using ISO 20022 messaging standards, making it compatible with existing international payment infrastructure.

Its design also allows financial institutions to process barcode payments, remittances, trade settlements and investment-related transactions while supporting additional digital financial services. According to the report, the modular architecture combines retail and wholesale payment functions with on-chain and off-chain settlement services to reduce integration costs for participating institutions.

The platform has continued to add financial institutions since its launch. On June 16, 2026, the International Operation Center signed direct participant service agreements with the first group of 26 financial institutions, including ICBC Asia, Bank of China Hong Kong, Standard Chartered China and several overseas ICBC branches operating in Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Macau and Qatar.

Digital yuan cross-border expansion continues

The latest transaction builds on China’s efforts to expand digital yuan use beyond domestic payments. Last year, the People’s Bank of China established the Digital RMB Operation and Management Center alongside the International Operation Center to separately oversee domestic adoption and international infrastructure for the currency. Officials said at the time that the two institutions would support both local deployment and overseas connectivity for the digital yuan.

Since then, authorities have steadily expanded cross-border applications. Beginning Jan. 1, 2026, banks were allowed to pay interest on verified digital yuan wallets as part of the transition from electronic cash to an interest-bearing digital deposit currency. At the same time, the central bank announced plans to widen cross-border pilots involving Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

ICBC has also introduced several cross-border payment services over the past year. According to Mobile Payment Network, the Shanghai branch previously launched the “Hu e Hui” international remittance service using the multilateral central bank digital currency bridge, reducing processing times for eligible transfers from about one hour to five minutes. 

The bank has also extended digital yuan settlement to offshore trade transactions in Shanghai’s Lingang New Area and introduced a cross-border e-commerce payment solution with Yiwu Pay.

Elsewhere in China, ICBC’s Inner Mongolia branch recently completed the region’s first large-value digital yuan cross-border transfer to Hong Kong worth 220 million yuan using the multilateral CBDC bridge, according to the report.

Mobile Payment Network said ICBC plans to continue working with the International Operation Center to expand standardized digital yuan settlement services across cross-border e-commerce, offshore trade, commodity financing and international logistics payments as more foreign trade companies adopt the platform.

The transaction also comes as Chinese policymakers continue to position digital currencies as part of future international payment networks. 

Speaking at the Lujiazui Forum in June, Wang Xin, director-general of the People’s Bank of China’s Research Bureau, said stablecoins could play a larger role in cross-border payments while policymakers continue monitoring their impact on the international monetary system and payment infrastructure. 

Wang also said central bank digital currencies deserve continued international cooperation as countries explore new cross-border payment technologies.

Mubadala Capital has launched tokenized access to an evergreen private market strategy through UAE-based infrastructure provider KAIO. 

The offering is available on Base, Solana and Sui and has attracted about $75 million from traditional and digital-asset investors.

A wallet tied to the $285 million Drift Protocol exploit moved 23,095.1 Ether, worth about $44.4 million, into Tornado Cash after roughly three months of inactivity.

The same address sent 0.85 ETH to wallets labeled as Bybit deposit addresses, according to Etherscan records and monitoring attributed to PeckShield.

Transfers began on July 23 and continued into July 24, on-chain records show. Researcher JL, known as 0xJaelle, flagged the movement and tagged ZachXBT. The investigator replied that he did not plan to keep following the funds without institutional support.

The crypto market ended the week higher even as U.S. equities slipped.

CoinMarketCap’s six-part recap placed total crypto capitalization at $2.22 trillion, up 2.30%, with Bitcoin gaining 4.16% and Ether rising 2.98%. The S&P 500 lost 0.53%, while the Nasdaq Composite barely moved. Altcoins also posted selective gains during the week.

CoinMarketCap described the week’s theme as “crypto market seeks clarity.” Liquidations remained contained, with shorts closing earlier and longs later. Funding rates stayed near neutral, suggesting leverage had not reached levels seen during sharper market swings.

Bitcoin leads while policy returns to focus

Bitcoin and Ether led the recovery as traders watched the latest U.S. market structure bill. Senator Cynthia Lummis released updated CLARITY Act text on July 22 after Senate Banking and Agriculture committees merged their work. The draft covers regulator duties, developer protections, stablecoin rules, ethics, anti-money laundering controls and law enforcement provisions.

Lummis called the coming weeks the “last real chance” to pass the legislation for years. However, Senator Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats criticized its ethics language and enforcement structure. As crypto.news previously reported, disputes over political conflicts, decentralized finance protections and crime investigations have repeatedly slowed the bill, even as prediction-market estimates for passage rose.

Corporate balance-sheet activity added another signal. Strategy increased its U.S. dollar reserve by $225 million to roughly $3.2 billion after selling common shares, while keeping 843,775 BTC. The reserve supports preferred-stock dividends and debt interest rather than new Bitcoin purchases.

Shutdowns and project changes reshape the sector

BitMEX announced that it will close on Sept. 23 at 04:00 UTC after reviewing its business and the wider market. The derivatives platform stopped new registrations and will block new positions from Aug. 26. Users can reduce positions and withdraw assets before the final shutdown.

The closure ends an 11-year run for a platform that helped popularize perpetual swaps and high-leverage crypto derivatives. As crypto.news reported before the announcement, BitMEX replaced senior executives in June while reports of a possible sale continued. The shutdown added pressure to smaller centralized exchanges competing for liquidity and paying higher compliance costs.

Other projects also changed direction. CoinMarketCap’s project update said Hyperliquid outlined permissionless HIP-4 outcome markets requiring 500,000 HYPE in staking support. Pump.fun introduced BOOST Mode for new launches, while ENS DAO activated a two-year security council able to stop transactions considered malicious.

Bridge attacks bring security risks back into view

Several cross-chain systems reported attacks. AFX Trade lost about $24.15 million in USDC after attackers obtained enough validator signatures to approve a bridge withdrawal. Arbitrum said the attack did not affect its native bridge. AFX paused operations while investigators reviewed the compromised signing setup.

Allbridge also halted its core bridge after a $1.65 million flash-loan attack on Solana liquidity pools. The attacker manipulated pool balances, withdrew assets at favorable rates and moved proceeds toward Ethereum. Across Protocol faced a separate Solana incident, but the project said the loss affected a Risk Labs-operated relayer rather than customer funds. It later restored Solana deposits.

The incidents returned bridge design and key management to the center of DeFi security. As crypto.news reported in earlier coverage, attacks have continued through 2026, including losses involving Kelp DAO and Axelar routes connected to Secret Network.

Institutional capital and tokenization continue expanding

Institutional deals provided a different market narrative. Crypto.com announced a $400 million investment from Citadel Securities at a $20 billion valuation. The company said it will use the funding to expand tokenized securities, derivatives and other asset classes across a planned 24/7 financial platform.

S&P Dow Jones Indices and Pantera Capital also launched the S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index. The benchmark uses a rules-based method focused on productive blockchain assets and companies with measurable use or revenue, rather than relying only on token popularity or price momentum.

Meanwhile, xStocks moved beyond U.S. shares by adding tokenized exposure to Hong Kong-listed equities through Payward and GTN. The companies plan to consider U.K., European and South Korean securities after securing required approvals. Tokenized equity value and trading activity have expanded as exchanges and traditional firms build around-the-clock products.

The week combined a market rebound with unresolved policy talks, security failures and infrastructure investment. Bitcoin and Ether finished higher, but stronger prices did not remove operational risks. The next market test will depend on the CLARITY Act’s Senate path, responses to bridge attacks and whether institutional funding converts into sustained trading and settlement activity. Traders will also watch funding rates and liquidation pressure closely.

Lien Finance has lost about $542,000 in USDC after an attacker exploited a flaw in its bond token logic to mint unsupported assets and drain liquidity from the protocol.

Blockchain security firm SlowMist said the exploit targeted Lien Finance’s bond exchange mechanism, allowing the attacker to create bond tokens without destroying the corresponding input bonds before swapping them for USDC. The firm estimated the loss at roughly 542,144.63 USDC and identified the attacker wallet as 0x0d7d…1808a.

According to SlowMist, the vulnerability was located in the exchangeEquivalentBonds function of the BondMakerCollateralizedEth contract. Its analysis said the function failed to properly verify the integrity of bond groups during exchanges. Instead of checking whether every bond ID appeared the required number of times, the contract counted only the total number of exception entries. By repeatedly using the same exception bond ID in the output group, the attacker satisfied the validation logic while omitting another required bond from the input.

SlowMist said the flaw allowed the attacker to mint new BondTokens that appeared valid even though no matching collateral had been consumed. The newly created assets were then exchanged for USDC through three pre-authorized endpoints, resulting in the withdrawal of about 542,144.63 USDC from the victim address 0xa961684a3a654fb2cca8f8991226c0cefc514d80.

The security firm identified the affected contracts as 0xda6fc5625e617bb92f5359921d43321cebc6bef0 and 0x843225cf6e663e4454732d6b551a737ac7b47de0.

Permissionless bond registration and pricing logic under scrutiny

Separate on-chain analysis from DefimonAlerts, later amplified by researcher exvulsec, described the incident as a protocol logic failure that combined permissionless bond registration with pricing weaknesses inside Lien Finance’s over-the-counter bond pools.

According to that analysis, the attacker first deployed an orchestration contract before registering a new bond group through the BondMakerCollateralizedEth contract. Because the registration process did not require governance approval, the attacker was reportedly able to introduce a bond group built around a malicious payoff function.

The report said the crafted bond tokens were then routed into Lien Finance’s GeneralizedDotc OTC pools. It pointed to the protocol’s internal _calcRateBondToErc20 function, saying it appears to have assigned excessive value to the newly created bonds despite their lack of genuine collateral backing.

As a result, the attacker exchanged what researchers described as effectively unsupported structured products for real USDC liquidity held in the protocol’s pools. The primary affected liquidity pool was the GeneralizedDotc contract at 0x656e…9ef18, while the attacker wallet received the proceeds through the main exploit transaction.

Researchers examining the exploit have described it as a protocol pricing and validation failure rather than a conventional smart contract exploit such as reentrancy or an access control bypass. According to the published analysis, the attack relied on introducing synthetic financial instruments whose economic value was not sufficiently validated before they became eligible for OTC swaps.

The researchers compared the incident with April’s Drift Protocol exploit, where attackers reportedly introduced fabricated collateral that the protocol accepted at inflated values before real assets were withdrawn. They noted that the two cases differ in implementation but share a similar pattern of exploiting valuation logic instead of breaking cryptographic protections.

Latest incident adds to a string of DeFi exploits

The Lien Finance exploit comes during an active period for decentralized finance security incidents.

Just one day earlier, on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain described July 23 as “Hackers’ Day” after three separate exploits resulted in combined reported losses of about $35.55 million. Those incidents included a $24.15 million exploit involving AFX Trade’s bridge infrastructure, a $7.54 million attack on the Verus Ethereum Bridge, and a separate $3.86 million exploit affecting B² Network.

In the AFX incident, blockchain security firm Blockaid said attackers drained about $24.15 million in USDC from infrastructure operated by the protocol rather than Arbitrum’s native bridge. Offchain Labs separately confirmed that Arbitrum’s core bridge was not compromised and said the incident involved third-party infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Blockaid also linked the latest Verus Ethereum Bridge exploit to the same bridge contract, entry path and apparent bug class involved in the project’s May breach. The firm said the July attack generated unbacked Ethereum-side payouts through the bridge’s import process, although a complete technical explanation had not yet been published.

Earlier this month, Lazy Summer Protocol lost about $6.04 million in a share price manipulation attack, while Bonzo Finance on Hedera reported losses of around $9 million following an oracle-related exploit. Allbridge Core also suffered a flash-loan-driven stable pool attack that drained roughly $1.65 million, and Polychain-backed Cascade lost approximately $1.34 million in another exploit during July.

Researchers tracking decentralized finance attacks have estimated cumulative losses exceeding $630 million during the first seven months of 2026. Their data identifies oracle manipulation, pricing flaws, compromised credentials and bridge validation weaknesses among the most common attack vectors recorded this year.

BondMaker architecture has faced security issues before

For long-time Ethereum developers, the latest exploit revisits an architecture that has drawn security attention before.

In September 2020, a white-hat group led by security researcher Samczsun prevented the loss of roughly $10 million after identifying a flaw in Lien Finance’s original BondMaker system.

Security researchers at the time said the earlier vulnerability allowed attackers to create empty bond groups that could be exchanged for properly collateralized ones through an equivalence function, making it possible to extract Ether without matching backing. The issue was intercepted before malicious actors could exploit it, and the recovery became one of Ethereum’s most prominent coordinated white-hat rescue efforts.

Unlike the 2020 incident, the latest exploit resulted in an actual loss after attackers used weaknesses in bond validation and pricing logic to withdraw USDC from live liquidity pools. At the time of publication, Lien Finance had not released a detailed technical postmortem or announced whether any of the stolen funds had been frozen or recovered.

Mirae Asset has rebranded South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Korbit as Digital X after completing its acquisition of a controlling stake, positioning the platform as the centerpiece of its digital asset strategy.

South Korean outlet Herald Business reported that Mirae Asset Group founder and Global Strategy Officer Park Hyeon-joo informed employees in an internal email on July 23 that Korbit had officially joined the group and would begin operating under the new name, Digital X. The announcement came after Mirae Asset Consulting completed its purchase of a 97.15% stake in the exchange.

Park described the rebranding as part of the group’s “Mirae Asset 3.0” strategy, under which Digital X will combine traditional financial services with digital asset businesses. According to the report, he said the new name represents the intersection of different forms of value and the possibilities created by bringing them together rather than serving as only a corporate identity change.

The company plans to build products around real-world asset tokenization, security token offerings, stablecoins and investment products that connect traditional and digital assets. Park said Digital X would serve as a core business unit supporting that strategy as digital assets become more integrated with mainstream finance.

Compliance and customer protection remain central

Alongside the business roadmap, Park outlined governance priorities for the newly rebranded exchange. Herald Business reported that he instructed employees to treat compliance as a non-negotiable standard by maintaining strict controls across anti-money laundering, know-your-customer verification, information security and fraud detection systems.

He also said the company should closely follow regulatory requirements as South Korea continues refining its Virtual Asset User Protection Act and prepares rules for security token offerings. According to the report, Park urged Digital X to become a model for implementing financial regulators’ guidance during the country’s evolving digital asset regulatory framework.

Park further linked the exchange’s future operations to Mirae Asset’s long-standing management philosophy, saying customer wealth creation should remain the foundation for every business decision. He added that products lacking sufficient value should not be introduced under the Mirae Asset brand, according to Herald Business.

The executive also said Mirae Asset intends to combine more than three decades of experience in global financial markets with Korbit’s operational knowledge in digital assets. According to the report, the company sees that combination as a way to help define the next stage of South Korea’s digital asset industry.

Acquisition completed after regulatory approval

The rebranding follows the completion of Mirae Asset’s acquisition of Korbit, which closed after the financial group’s affiliate, Mirae Asset Consulting, secured the required regulatory approvals.

Korbit confirmed on Thursday that Mirae Asset Consulting had completed its purchase of the remaining 5.42% stake, increasing its ownership to 97.15%. Earlier this week, the company disclosed plans to acquire an additional 7.35 million shares worth approximately 7.2 billion won ($5.32 million), raising its holding from 92.06%.

Earlier this month, South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission approved the transaction, which The Korea Herald described as the country’s first acquisition of a cryptocurrency exchange by an affiliate of a traditional financial group. Mirae Asset Consulting previously said the investment was intended to secure future growth opportunities connected to digital assets.

Despite the ownership change, Korbit said customers would continue using the exchange without disruption. The company stated that its operating entity would remain unchanged and that existing services, including trading, deposits, withdrawals and account access, would continue as before.

The exchange also said customer funds and virtual assets would remain segregated from company assets under South Korea’s Virtual Asset User Protection Act. It added that Korbit would continue acting as the controller of users’ personal information, meaning customers would not need to take any action following the acquisition.

Traditional finance expands crypto presence

Mirae Asset’s entry into the cryptocurrency exchange business comes as South Korea’s financial institutions continue increasing their involvement in digital assets through acquisitions, investments and infrastructure partnerships.

CoinGecko data showed Korbit processed roughly $4.3 million in spot trading volume over a recent 24-hour period, placing it among the country’s leading exchanges behind market leader Upbit.

Several similar transactions have emerged across the market in recent months. In May, OKX Ventures agreed to acquire a 19.6% stake in Coinone through an 80 billion won ($53 million) investment alongside Korea Investment & Securities, subject to regulatory approval. The companies said they would cooperate on user protection, security systems and risk management while exploring opportunities related to security tokens and stablecoins.

Binance has also pursued expansion in South Korea through its acquisition of Gopax, while Samsung affiliates announced plans earlier this year to acquire a combined 4% stake in Dunamu, the parent company of Upbit. 

At the same time, major financial institutions including KB Kookmin Bank, Shinhan Bank and NHN KCP have entered partnerships involving tokenized deposits and stablecoin payment infrastructure.

Before joining Mirae Asset, Korbit had also expanded its international partnerships. In November 2024, the exchange integrated Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network Base, allowing users to move Ether between Ethereum and Base while supporting future collaboration on on-chain technology, developer programs and community initiatives in South Korea.

SpaceX’s broken IPO has crypto media narrating every tick against its 18,712 BTC. One division destroys the story: the coins are eight basis points of the company. 

Here is the decomposition, why the proxy myth survives arithmetic, and where SpaceX actually touches crypto, which is stranger than the myth.

There is a genre of crypto headline that has attached itself to SpaceX like a barnacle since June 12, when the company completed the largest IPO in history and promptly broke: every move in the stock, now 48% below its peak and under its own offer price, gets narrated against the 18,712 Bitcoin on the company’s balance sheet. The stock falls, and the coins are in danger. A dormant wallet moves $88 of test dust, and a selloff looms. The framing has a name, the Bitcoin proxy, a listed stock that functions partly as leveraged BTC exposure from day one, and it has migrated from trading desks to research notes to the passive-flow analysis around the company’s Nasdaq-100 inclusion. It survives on one number, 18,712, and dies on one division. SpaceX is worth roughly $1.56 trillion at Thursday’s price. Its Bitcoin is worth roughly $1.18 billion. The coins are 0.076% of the company, eight basis points, a rounding error inside a rounding error, and every trader positioning in SPCX for Bitcoin exposure is buying a rocket company with a satellite business and receiving, as a bonus, less BTC sensitivity than the cash drag in a money-market fund. This piece does the decomposition the narrative skips, explains why the myth is immortal anyway, and maps where SpaceX actually matters to crypto, which turns out to be a better story than the one being told.

Three major crypto advocacy groups have urged U.S. Senate leaders to allow the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act to receive “floor consideration,” pushing for a full vote before the chamber departs for state work periods in August. In a joint letter sent Friday to Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the organizations said bipartisan negotiations are still underway and asked senators to keep discussions moving.

The appeal lands as the bill has cleared the Senate Banking and Agriculture committees, but the political math and remaining policy disputes have left uncertainty around timing. With Republicans holding a 52–47 majority over Democrats in the Senate, passage would require 60 votes—meaning cross-party support remains essential.

Key takeaways

• Crypto advocacy groups are requesting Senate leadership schedule the CLARITY Act for a floor vote (“floor consideration”) before August recess.
• The bill has progressed through the Senate Banking and Agriculture committees, but some lawmakers plan to delay voting until specific provisions are addressed.
• Republicans released the CLARITY market structure text earlier this week, including ethics provisions aimed at public corruption concerns.
• Democrats have criticized the ethics package as insufficient, raising the odds of stalled negotiations and a delayed vote.
• Markets are already pricing in uncertainty: Kalshi event contracts showed about a 40.3% chance of a Senate vote before the August recess as of Friday.

Advocates press for a floor vote amid legislative uncertainty

In their letter, the Crypto Council for Innovation, the Digital Chamber, and the Blockchain Association urged senators to prioritize bringing CLARITY to the floor. The groups acknowledged that “constructive bipartisan negotiations remain underway” and encouraged lawmakers to continue good-faith discussions between both parties.

Committee progress does not guarantee that the bill reaches the chamber in time. While the legislation has advanced through Senate banking and agriculture panels, the letter suggests that political leaders are still weighing whether the final language will satisfy key concerns. The timing matters: if senators fail to vote before the August recess, the debate could spill into the weeks leading up to the 2026 U.S. midterms, potentially reshaping the incentive structure for lawmakers on both sides.

Ethics and market structure provisions become the sticking point

CLARITY is widely framed as one of the most consequential U.S. bills for the crypto sector, in part because it aims to provide clearer rules for digital asset markets. The latest Republican effort included ethics provisions designed to bar public officials from issuing or sponsoring cryptocurrencies, according to reporting that referenced the bill text released earlier this week.

However, those measures appear to be at the center of Democratic skepticism. Politico reported that Senator Ruben Gallego criticized the GOP’s counterproposal as not matching what Democrats said had been promised during negotiations. Gallego said, according to Politico, that after extensive work with Republican colleagues, the new offer did not reflect a serious attempt to address concerns raised during earlier bargaining.

“[…] After all the work that we’ve done with our Republican colleagues, that they would take the months and months of work and somehow interpret that and turn around and think what they offered was even remotely close.”

That criticism underscores a central tension: even as the bill’s broader market-structure goals gain traction, lawmakers may be reluctant to move without stronger agreement on ethics and enforcement-related safeguards.

Industry groups argue CLARITY matters for both compliance and innovation

While the legislative fight focuses heavily on ethics provisions, industry leaders are also emphasizing what they see as CLARITY’s practical impact on how the U.S. regulates digital assets—especially outside traditional custody models.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong argued that the U.S. still lacks a comprehensive federal framework and that the absence of such rules has allowed harmful behavior to reach customers while business activity migrates beyond U.S. oversight. In a Wednesday X post, Armstrong said the bill would provide consumer protections, tools for law enforcement, and a path for the country to lead in the industry.

Orest Gavryliak, chief legal officer of DeFi platform 1inch, discussed the bill on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction podcast on Friday. He said CLARITY would help recognize a legal framework for non-custodial protocols, contrasting that approach with what he described as regulators trying to fit decentralized systems into custodial frameworks. Gavryliak’s argument was that rules designed for custodial models do not translate cleanly to non-custodial protocols—an issue he said makes passage “very important.”

What markets are signaling about timing—and what to watch next

Even with committee approvals, reaching the 60-vote threshold remains the main challenge. That requirement creates a built-in incentive for lawmakers to negotiate hard on unresolved provisions rather than accept a narrow coalition. The result is that procedural timing—whether leadership can secure enough alignment to schedule a floor vote—may become as consequential as the final bill text itself.

As of Friday, Kalshi’s event contracts offered users a 40.3% chance that the Senate would vote on the CLARITY Act before the August recess, reflecting a market view that passage may not be immediate even if the bill is moving.

For investors, traders, and developers, the next key question is not simply whether the CLARITY Act survives procedural hurdles, but what changes—if any—are made as senators try to reconcile ethics-related disagreements. If the ethics language remains the primary point of contention, negotiations could continue to expand rather than converge. Conversely, if the Senate leadership finds a pathway to unify enough support for floor consideration, CLARITY could become a central reference point for U.S. crypto compliance planning well before lawmakers turn to the broader midterm political cycle.