The Philippines’ central bank has proposed freezing new payment-system operator registrations for 12 months while imposing tighter controls on payment arrangements involving virtual asset service providers (VASPs). 

Under a draft circular, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said it would suspend acceptance and processing of applications for operators of payment systems (OPS) to conduct a “holistic review” of its taxonomy and licensing framework. 

Applications submitted before the suspension could continue to be evaluated, but the BSP would not approve or deny any until the pause ends. Entities would be barred from starting activities that require OPS registration unless the regulator authorizes them otherwise. 

The proposal would require BSP-supervised institutions offering merchant acquisition services to handle regulated VASPs through direct merchant arrangements. Those relationships would be subject to enhanced due diligence and monitoring, transaction and settlement limits and other risk-based controls. 

The requirement covers virtual asset firms that must be licensed, registered or authorized by the BSP, the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission, or another authority. VASPs are listed alongside gambling businesses, gaming providers, adult-oriented businesses and money service businesses.

The draft would take effect 15 days after publication if finalized, and the BSP is currently accepting feedback.

Cointelegraph reached out to the BSP for more information but did not receive a response before publication. 

Related: Philippines SEC flags dYdX, six crypto platforms as unauthorized

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Flare has recorded a roughly 34% increase in staked FLR since July, taking the total to 21.5 billion tokens as its revised economic model cuts inflation and ties more network activity to token burns and protocol revenue.

Flare staking has increased to 21.5 billion FLR

DefiLlama Research reported on Sept. 4 that Flare’s tokenomics changes are producing measurable onchain results four months after the network approved FIP.16.

Staked FLR rose from approximately 16 billion in July to 21.5 billion, an increase of about 34%. The portion of all staked or delegated FLR held in staking climbed from roughly 32% in April to 46% by late August, with much of the increase occurring within weeks of the July 14 network upgrade.

Under FIP.16, FLR locked on Flare’s P-chain carries five times the signing weight of wrapped FLR delegated on its C-chain. Delegated tokens remain liquid and can be withdrawn at any time, while P-chain staking requires holders to lock their capital with a validator.

Signing weight determines how much influence infrastructure providers have when producing blocks and operating Flare’s native data systems. Providers run the Flare Time Series Oracle, which supplies price feeds, and the Flare Data Connector, which verifies information from other blockchains and Web2 services.

Before FIP.16, different Flare protocols calculated voting weight in different ways. The revised system applies one calculation across FTSO anchor feeds, FDC, and block-latency feeds, with locked stake receiving the fivefold weighting.

Flare’s official governance proposal said the change was designed to put more influence behind committed capital and make the network’s core services equally costly to attack.

At the same time, the July upgrade raised the maximum stake per validator from 200 million to 300 million FLR. It also introduced a network-wide minimum delegation fee of 20%, replacing the previous minimum of zero.

Flare said the fee floor should prevent providers from competing through unsustainably low charges. Infrastructure providers must operate validators, collect data, maintain independent systems, and participate in governance, according to the proposal.

Flare tokenomics changes cut inflation and raise burns

Annual FLR inflation fell from 5% to 3% on May 14, cutting the headline rate by 40%. The annual issuance ceiling also declined from 5 billion to 3 billion FLR.

With an inflatable supply of about 87 billion tokens, the 3% rate produces a gross yearly issuance of roughly 2.6 billion FLR, according to DefiLlama Research. Actual issuance may decrease over time because FIP.16 also changed, which balances count toward the calculation.

Permanently burned FLR, tokens held by the Flare Income Reinvestment Entity, and unearned rewards placed in certain penalty pools are excluded from the inflation base. As those balances increase, the amount subject to the 3% calculation becomes smaller.

Transaction burns accelerated after Flare implemented its Granite upgrade on July 14. Official network release notes show that the minimum C-chain base fee increased from 25 gwei to 500 gwei.

All FLR paid as base transaction fees are permanently destroyed. Flare had burned 15.6 million FLR through transaction fees in 2026 by the time DefiLlama published its report, with more than 40% of the total burned following the July upgrade.

Consequently, the current burn pace sits at more than 10 times its pre-upgrade baseline. Usage determines the amount destroyed because every transaction removes FLR without requiring a new vote or a treasury decision.

Higher gas settings have not made simple transfers expensive in dollar terms. DefiLlama estimated that a basic transfer costs around 0.064 FLR, although transactions involving smart contracts may consume more gas.

Activity feeding the burn mechanism has also expanded through Flare’s FAssets system. In May, an FAssets v1.3 upgrade allowed users to mint FXRP from centralized exchanges such as Binance and Kraken through an XRP Ledger destination tag. FLR rose 14% on the day the upgrade went live, crypto.news reported at the time.

FIRE has started collecting network revenue

FIP.16 created FIRE as a governed entity responsible for receiving revenue generated by Flare’s protocols. Its primary mandate permits the entity to reduce FLR supply through token burns and open-market purchases.

Secondary uses include supporting asset issuers, application yields, liquidity programs and the Flare Foundation’s network operations. Flare initially administers the entity through its foundation.

Four income sources are already active. FIRE receives all FAssets minting fees, 90% of FDC request fees, 10% of FAssets redemption fees, and FLR paid for FXRP destination-tag registrations.

Since collections began in May, FIRE has received assets worth $31,438, according to the DefiLlama report. FAssets minting provided $18,248 across 7,708 mints, making it the largest source.

FDC request fees contributed another $12,676 after collections from that service began on Aug. 18. Destination-tag registrations added $505, while FAssets redemption fees supplied $9.

Two sources pay FIRE in FLR, and two pay in FXRP. As a result, the pool’s reported dollar value changes with token prices as well as the volume of protocol activity.

FDC activity supports several services behind those revenue streams. Flare uses the connector to verify payments and events outside its network, including XRP Ledger transactions involved in creating FXRP.

A July update simplified FXRP access by allowing users to mint the asset and enter selected vaults with one XRP Ledger signature. At the time, FXRP deployed in DeFi had increased from 82 million in February to 144 million, while users had created nearly 24,000 Flare Smart Accounts.

FIRE’s current receipts remain small compared with approximately 2.6 billion FLR in estimated gross annual issuance. Flare’s model therefore still relies mainly on reduced inflation and transaction burns rather than on enough protocol income to offset token creation.

Planned income from Flare Smart Accounts, Confidential Compute, and protocol-level maximal extractable value has yet to enter FIRE. Flare said its MEV system would capture value from permitted activities such as liquidations, atomic arbitrage, cross-chain arbitrage, and just-in-time liquidity.

According to Flare’s April explanation of FIP.16, its DeFi ecosystem processed more than 660,000 transactions involving cyclic-arbitrage structures and over 1,000 liquidation events during the first quarter of 2026. The company said the amount that FIRE could collect from MEV would depend on the volume and type of DeFi transactions processed by the network.

FXRP activity connects Flare with U.S.-regulated RLUSD

FAssets give tokens from networks without smart-contract support a usable form on Flare. FXRP represents XRP within that system, allowing holders to place the asset in lending markets, liquidity pools, vaults, and other decentralized applications.

Flare said in April that more than 150 million FXRP was in circulation, with about 85% deployed across DeFi. At that point, the network had more than $160 million in total value locked under DefiLlama’s standard calculation and over 880,000 active addresses.

Part of that activity now reaches Ethereum. In August, FXRP received approval as collateral in Sentora’s RLUSD Main vault on Morpho, allowing holders to borrow Ripple’s dollar-backed stablecoin without selling their XRP exposure.

The RLUSD lending market provides a relevant U.S. connection because Ripple received approval for the stablecoin from the New York Department of Financial Services in December 2024. Sentora reviewed FXRP’s liquidity, price behavior, oracle design and liquidation mechanics before accepting it as collateral.

Morpho uses isolated lending markets, limiting problems with one collateral asset to its specific pool rather than exposing every market in the protocol. Borrowers must deposit more FXRP than the value of RLUSD they receive, and liquidations depend on enough FXRP liquidity being available to repay lenders.

FIRE may move to joint community governance after its first year. Initiating the change requires support from holders representing at least 50% of Flare’s total inflatable FLR supply, after which the network would elect four representatives from infrastructure providers operating across Flare and Songbird.

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French Bitcoin treasury company Capital B has acquired 376 Bitcoin (BTC) for 25.3 million euros ($29.5 million), bringing its total holdings to 3,521 BTC.

The purchase was funded after Capital B completed roughly 30.1 million euros ($35 million) in capital raises, including a private placement backed by investors Adam Back and TOBAM, according to a Monday announcement.

The company bought the Bitcoin at an average price of 67,182 euros apiece, with Swissquote Bank Europe executing the purchase and Taurus providing custody.

Capital B has spent a total of 309.4 million euros acquiring its Bitcoin treasury, at an average cost of 87,878 euros per BTC. The purchase moved the company to 25th among publicly traded companies by Bitcoin holdings, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net.

The latest acquisition was Capital B’s largest since September 2025, when it purchased 551 BTC for 54.7 million euros. The company also holds 61 BTC for operational purposes, which it keeps separate from its treasury reserve and excludes from its Bitcoin-related performance metrics.

Related: Satoshi-era Bitcoin wakes after 16 years of dormancy as 600 BTC moves

Top BTC treasury firms continue accumulating

While companies including K Wave Media and Sequans Communications have moved to unwind their Bitcoin treasuries, others are continuing to accumulate.

Japan-based Metaplanet acquired 2,823 BTC during the second quarter for about $222 million, bringing its holdings to 43,000 BTC. The company paid an average of roughly $78,850 per Bitcoin during the quarter and now ranks as the third-largest publicly traded corporate Bitcoin holder, behind Michael Saylor’s Strategy and Twenty One Capital, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net.

In August, Sweden-based H100 Group more than tripled its Bitcoin holdings after acquiring Norwegian companies holding 2,455 BTC. The all-share deal lifted H100’s treasury to 3,506 BTC, making it Europe’s second-largest publicly traded corporate Bitcoin holder at the time. Capital B’s latest purchase puts it 15 BTC ahead of H100, though both remain behind Germany’s Bitcoin Group SE with 3,605 BTC.

Strategy, the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, also resumed buying in August after a two-month pause, acquiring 4,603 BTC for $370 million. The purchase brought its holdings to 845,050 BTC, acquired for a combined $63.3 billion.

Top 30 Bitcoin treasury companies. Source: BitcoinTreasuries.NET

Magazine: ‘White hats’ take 4000 BTC from Liquid, ETFs see best inflows of 2026: Hodler’s Digest

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As of Sep. 7, 2026, Bitcoin has recently staged a strong rebound, moving back above the $80,000 level and briefly breaking through $81,000. The rise was mainly driven by continued inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs, recovering institutional demand, and improving market sentiment.

The funding picture has also remained strong. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded approximately $987 million in net inflows for the week ending Sep. 4, maintaining net inflows for three consecutive weeks and indicating that institutional investors’ demand for Bitcoin allocation is continuing to recover.

Entering September, market attention will continue to focus on ETF fund flows, Federal Reserve policy expectations, macroeconomic data, and overall market liquidity. If continued ETF inflows push BTC through key resistance levels, Bitcoin’s upside potential could expand further, although short-term performance may still be affected by the macroeconomic environment and market volatility.

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DBS and Citi have completed the first tokenized cross-border payment between Singapore and the United States over a blockchain-based settlement rail, marking a concrete step in banks’ shift from traditional transfer timelines toward near-instant processing.

The transaction was executed on Saturday using tokenized deposits via the Swift Digital Ledger, according to DBS, which said the deposit was finalized in minutes—an improvement over the “as long as two business days” timeline typical of conventional cross-border transfers. DBS made the announcement on Monday.

Key takeaways

• DBS and Citi completed a Singapore-to-US cross-border payment using tokenized deposits on the Swift Digital Ledger.
• DBS said the deposit was settled in minutes, contrasting with traditional cross-border transfers that can take up to two business days.
• The experiment highlights how major banks are testing blockchain rails while still operating within banking deposit structures.
• Swift’s blockchain ledger work is moving from pilots toward broader operational use, following earlier live demonstrations.

Tokenized deposits on Swift’s digital ledger go live

DBS described the weekend transfer as a landmark milestone for cross-border payments, not only because it used the Swift Digital Ledger, but also because it relied on tokenized deposits rather than switching to a fully crypto-native model.

Under this approach, banks can represent deposit value as tokens while keeping the transaction rooted in regulated banking balance sheets. DBS framed the speed of finalization as a key differentiator: settling within minutes rather than waiting through banking-day cutoffs and correspondent processes that often slow down international payments.

A shift from pilots to operational momentum

This development sits within a longer sequence of Swift blockchain efforts. In August, Standard Chartered and HSBC became the first banks to complete a live tokenized cross-border transaction using Swift’s blockchain ledger—showing that the concept could work outside a closed test environment.

Earlier, Swift said its blockchain-based ledger was ready for initial use and that it was preparing to pilot tokenized cross-border payments with 17 major banks. The pilot group included Citi, DBS, HSBC, BNP Paribas, UBS, ANZ, and Standard Chartered, as noted in reporting on Swift’s preparations.

With DBS and Citi now completing the Singapore-US leg using the ledger, the focus appears to be moving from feasibility and interbank coordination toward repeatable processing that can be integrated into existing banking workflows.

Why keeping deposits “inside” banking matters

While blockchain rails are often discussed in the context of digital assets, the direction implied by DBS’s framing is different: tokenization here is being used to streamline settlement while preserving familiar deposit mechanics.

That matters for multiple reasons. First, it can reduce friction for counterparties that are more comfortable with the compliance and operational controls already embedded in deposit-based systems. Second, it provides a path to faster settlement without necessarily requiring participants to hold or transfer tokens as their primary payment method for everyday banking.

In other words, these transactions suggest a hybrid model: blockchain for settlement efficiency, traditional deposits for value custody and regulated banking integration.

Plans for broader tokenized deposit networks

The weekend result also fits into plans for future deposit token infrastructure in the United States. In June, The Wall Street Journal reported that Citi and other large US banks plan to launch a separate tokenized deposit network in the first half of 2027, operated by The Clearing House. The WSJ report cites David Watson, CEO of the bank-owned payments operator, in connection with the initiative.

Separately, DBS and JPMorgan have also outlined longer-term work. In November 2025, Cointelegraph reported that the two banks revealed plans to develop a blockchain-based tokenization framework aimed at enabling onchain transfers between their respective deposit token ecosystems and potentially setting an industry standard for cross-bank payments.

Taken together, these efforts point toward an emerging competitive and collaborative landscape: banks testing tokenized rails in production while simultaneously planning next-generation network designs that could expand interoperability beyond individual bilateral relationships.

Looking ahead, market participants will likely watch whether speed improvements translate into consistent, scalable settlement performance across more corridors, and whether Swift-led ledger usage broadens beyond early pairs like DBS-Citi—especially as parallel tokenized deposit network plans move from announcements toward delivery.

Bitcoin (BTC) drifted lower on Monday as a low-liquidity environment erased the weekend’s gains above $80,000.

Key points:

• Bitcoin dips 2% below $80,000 after its highest weekly close since the start of May.
• Traders are in wait-and-see mode ahead of the week’s key volatility catalyst in the form of US inflation data.
• Analysis praises Bitcoin’s “resilience” as a narrow range holds since mid-August. 

Bitcoin needs US inflation catalyst: Analysis

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD down nearly 2% on the day at the time of writing. This price action comes after its first weekly close above $80,000 since early May.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

With US markets closed for the Labor Day holiday, thinner order books increased the chances of sudden moves to target liquidity both above and below the spot price. Data from CoinGlass showed liquidations evenly split between long and short positions over the past 24 hours, with the cross-crypto total at $178 million. 

Crypto liquidation history (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass

Liquidity thickened over the course of Monday, with concentrations at $80,500 and $78,800 providing nearby short-term targets.

Crypto liquidation heatmap. Source: CoinGlass

In comments, trading company QCP Capital flagged declining overall volatility, suggesting that traders required external catalysts. These are due in the form of US inflation data on Thursday and Friday, which is likely to impact market expectations for interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.

“Near-term volatility compression, despite approaching catalysts, reflects a market waiting for clarity rather than pricing in strong directional views,” QCP wrote in its latest analysis. It added that the “market is positioned for a directional break once the inflation data arrives.”

BTC price “resilience” draws attention

Despite moving in a confined range since Aug. 21, BTC/USD offered bullish signals and held the majority of its 25% gains from earlier last month. 

Related: Here’s what happened in crypto today

BTC/USD one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

In comments sent to Cointelegraph, Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget, noted that Bitcoin had digested last week’s US macro volatility trigger, which was a surprise uptick in nonfarm payrolls numbers.

“Bitcoin’s resilience is notable because stronger employment would normally put upward pressure on yields and the dollar, creating a tougher environment for risk assets,” he said. 

“The market’s ability to absorb that repricing suggests investors are not treating a potential Fed hike as the only factor driving Bitcoin at current levels.”

As Cointelegraph reported, the US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) also remain on the radar following Thursday’s $730 million net inflows. This was the cohort’s highest single-day tally since January.