Strategy expanded its cash reserve to a record $3.75 billion after selling additional MSTR shares last week. The company also completed its first STRC preferred stock buyback under its repurchase program. Meanwhile, Strategy kept its Bitcoin holdings unchanged as MSTR shares gained during premarket trading and Bitcoin remained above $65,000.

Strategy Expands Cash Reserve and Completes First STRC Buyback

Strategy increased its USD reserve by $525 million after raising about $544.5 million through MSTR stock sales. The latest filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed the updated reserve position. As a result, the company now holds $3.75 billion in cash reserves.

The larger reserve gives Strategy about 2.1 years of dividend coverage under current estimates. At the same time, the company executed its first STRC preferred stock repurchase. Strategy bought back 288,930 STRC preferred shares for approximately $25 million.

The repurchase formed part of the Digital Credit Securities Repurchase Program announced last month. After the transaction, Strategy retained $975 million for additional preferred stock repurchases. Meanwhile, the MSTR share repurchase program still has about $1 million available for future purchases.

Bitcoin Holdings Stay Unchanged as Capital Strategy Continues

Strategy did not purchase additional Bitcoin during the latest reporting period. Instead, the company continued raising capital through MSTR share sales. The company still holds 843,775 BTC valued at approximately $58.47 billion.

Strategy acquired those Bitcoin holdings for about $63.68 billion over several years. Consequently, the company currently carries more than $5.21 billion in unrealized losses. However, the company has maintained its long-term Bitcoin treasury approach despite recent market fluctuations.

Strategy remains the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin among publicly traded companies. The company has regularly financed Bitcoin acquisitions through equity offerings and preferred stock issuance. However, the latest filing focused on strengthening liquidity instead of expanding Bitcoin holdings.

MSTR Shares Rise as Bitcoin Holds Above $65,000

MSTR shares closed 2.09% lower at $91.67 during Friday’s regular trading session. The stock traded between $89.76 and $93.68 before finishing below the previous close. Trading volume also remained below the stock’s 20 million share average.

Premarket trading showed renewed buying activity after the latest corporate filing became public. MSTR gained 2.21% and traded near $93.70 before the opening bell. Even so, the stock remains down about 10% over the past month and nearly 50% this year.

Meanwhile, STRC shares advanced 1.66% to $88.33 but remained below the preferred stock’s $100 target price. Several brokerage firms have maintained buy ratings on MSTR with an average 12-month target of $275. At the same time, Bitcoin traded above $65,000 after developments in Iran-Oman discussions supported broader market sentiment, while trading volume increased 86% during the past 24 hours.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has launched a framework to assess banks’ preparedness for quantum-computing threats as the city expands its use of tokenized deposits, digital assets and blockchain settlement. 

On Monday, the HKMA introduced a white paper on quantum preparedness and the sector’s first Quantum Preparedness Index (QPI). The index gave the sector an overall readiness score of 2.3 out of 10, while the white paper found that around half of surveyed institutions had no formal post-quantum planning in place. The HKMA said it aims to achieve full sector readiness, represented by a QPI score of 10, by 2030.

The development comes as Hong Kong moves more traditional financial activity onto distributed ledgers. Government figures show that Hong Kong has issued three batches of tokenized green bonds totaling about HK$16.8 billion (about $2.1 billion) since 2023, while the HKMA is advancing tokenized deposits and digital-asset settlement through Project Ensemble. 

The HKMA white paper said distributed ledger applications and payment networks depend on cryptography for core functions and could face severe disruption if those protections were compromised. 

It also said one surveyed institution completed a proof of concept applying post-quantum cryptography to distributed-ledger connectivity and cited HSBC’s 2024 use of quantum-safe technology to move tokenized gold across distributed ledgers.

Hong Kong’s tokenization push raises quantum stakes

The quantum initiative follows the launch of the HKMA’s Fintech 2030 strategy in 2025, which made tokenization one of four strategic pillars in a plan comprising more than 40 initiatives.

The regulator said it would accelerate real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, regularize tokenized government bond issuance and explore tokenized Exchange Fund papers, with blockchain settlement supported by e-HKD, tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins. 

Related: Hong Kong launches initiative to help banks with DLT adoption

In a Feb. 11, 2026, speech, Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan said banks in Hong Kong held more than HK$14 billion (about $1.785 billion) in digital assets under custody at the end of 2025, up about 180% year over year, while tokenized deposits had reached HK$29 billion ($3.7 billion).

According to the HKMA white paper, quantum computers capable of running Shor’s algorithm at scale could eventually break widely used RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography. This could allow attackers to decrypt protected data or forge the digital signatures used to authorize transactions, verify identities and establish trust in financial systems.

Because replacing embedded cryptographic systems can take years, the HKMA urged banks to begin inventories, risk assessments and migration planning before such machines become available.

Magazine: Ethereum’s EEZ could pull other blockchains into its orbit

Tether’s gold-backed token XAUt has secured Shariah certification from Amanah Advisors, positioning the product for wider use among Islamic financial institutions and investors seeking Shariah-compliant exposure to physical bullion. The move focuses on whether the token’s underlying design aligns with Islamic finance principles, particularly around how value is held and whether income-generation features introduce interest-related concerns.

According to Tether, the certification concluded that XAUt’s structure complies with key Shariah requirements, including full backing by physical gold, the absence of interest and leverage, and transparent reserves. Tether says each XAUt token corresponds to one troy ounce of physical gold held in Swiss vaults.

Key takeaways

• XAUt received Shariah certification from Amanah Advisors, strengthening its suitability for Islamic financial institutions and investors.
• Tether says the token is fully backed by physical gold, with reserves designed to be transparent and structured without interest or leverage.
• As of March 31, Tether reported XAUt reserves exceeding 707,000 troy ounces worth more than $3.3 billion.
• Onchain data cited by RWA.xyz indicates XAUt’s asset value has risen from about $700 million in July 2025 to roughly $2.5 billion.

Why Shariah certification matters for tokenized gold

For many investors, the question is not simply whether an asset is pegged to a real-world commodity, but whether the product’s mechanics fit within Shariah guidelines. Islamic finance frameworks generally restrict practices considered to involve excessive uncertainty, speculative dynamics, or interest. Those constraints have historically created a barrier for broader adoption of mainstream crypto and tokenized offerings.

By obtaining certification, Tether has effectively reduced one of the main due-diligence hurdles for compliance-focused stakeholders. Tether said the certification gives it a clearer path to distribute XAUt to Islamic banks and institutions, as well as individual investors across regions where Islamic finance is widely practiced, including the Gulf Cooperation Council, South Asia, and parts of Africa.

In addition, Tether highlighted reserve transparency and physical custody as central to the compliance narrative. Tether’s position is that each token represents one troy ounce of gold stored in Swiss vaults, and that the token is not engineered with leverage or interest-bearing features.

Reserve coverage and growth in tokenized gold exposure

XAUt is described by Tether as one of the largest tokenized gold products in the crypto market. The company’s latest reserves reporting (available via Tether’s gold reserve reports page) showed that the token was backed by more than 707,000 troy ounces of physical gold as of March 31, representing a value above $3.3 billion.

Beyond reserve size, demand signals also matter. Data cited by RWA.xyz suggests XAUt’s onchain asset value has expanded significantly over the past year. The article notes that the figure rose from approximately $700 million in July 2025 to around $2.5 billion, indicating growing interest in gold exposure delivered through token infrastructure.

While tokenized commodities are often discussed through the lens of liquidity and accessibility, the key point for investors is how Shariah certification and physical backing can intersect with market demand. If institutions in Shariah-compliant finance ecosystems can evaluate the product with fewer structural objections, it may help unlock new distribution channels—particularly where regulators and compliance departments scrutinize whether a product’s income or risk characteristics violate established principles.

Broader trend: more Shariah-compliant crypto products

Debate over cryptocurrency’s compatibility with Islamic finance has been ongoing. As discussed in earlier coverage referenced by the source, scholars have differed on whether digital assets meet Shariah expectations due to concerns such as speculation and uncertainty. Over time, however, efforts to design compliant products have started to gain traction.

One example highlighted in the source dates back to 2025, when a Bahrain-based group, AlAbraaj Restaurants Group, said it adopted a Bitcoin treasury strategy and intended to develop Shariah-compliant financial instruments to broaden access to Bitcoin within the Islamic world.

More recently, the source points to developments in stablecoin infrastructure. In April, Palm Azgar Finance expanded its Shariah-compliant PUSD stablecoin to ADI Chain, positioning it around the scale of the global Islamic finance market. The source notes that PUSD became the second stablecoin available on that network, enabling institutions to settle transactions using either a dollar-linked asset or a dirham-denominated token on the same infrastructure.

Taken together, these examples frame a shift from theoretical compliance debate toward product engineering—attempts to structure crypto exposure in a way that can pass institutional review. Tether’s XAUt certification fits that broader pattern by targeting a concrete barrier: certification by a recognized advisor that can assess whether a tokenized gold product is consistent with Shariah guidelines.

Middle East momentum and the regulatory backdrop

Distribution is not just about product design; it also depends on how regional regulators handle digital asset services. The source describes Dubai as an increasingly prominent crypto hub and notes that the emirate’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) issued its 50th virtual asset service provider license earlier this month. The article adds that this puts Dubai ahead of Hong Kong and Singapore in the number of licensed crypto firms, underscoring the pace of regulated market development in the region.

For tokenized assets like XAUt, regulatory clarity can influence whether institutions consider adoption—especially when they need to align token distribution, custody, and settlement practices with local compliance requirements. Shariah certification addresses a religious/contractual suitability question, while licensing and regulatory frameworks address operational and legal concerns. Together, the two can determine how quickly eligible products can move from niche demand to broader institutional access.

Looking ahead, the key variable will be how fast Shariah-compliant finance players incorporate XAUt into their offerings after certification. Investors and institutions should watch for indications of new partnerships, clearer market access strategies by Tether, and evidence that demand growth continues in step with the asset’s reserve reporting and onchain uptake.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has moved to harden the city’s financial system against the long-term risks posed by quantum computing. In a newly released white paper, the regulator unveiled a first-of-its-kind Quantum Preparedness Index (QPI) designed to measure how ready banks are for potential threats to the cryptography that underpins digital payments, tokenized deposits and blockchain-based settlement.

According to the HKMA, the sector’s overall QPI score stands at 2.3 out of 10. The white paper also found that around half of surveyed institutions have not put formal post-quantum planning in place. HKMA said it is targeting full sector readiness—defined as a QPI score of 10—by 2030.

Key takeaways

• The HKMA’s inaugural Quantum Preparedness Index scored the banking sector at 2.3/10, signalling limited maturity in post-quantum planning.
• About half of surveyed institutions reportedly lack formal post-quantum cryptography migration plans.
• The regulator links quantum risk directly to the cryptography used in distributed ledgers and payment networks, warning of potentially severe disruption if protections fail.
• HKMA aims for banks to reach “full readiness” by 2030, with early actions such as inventories and migration planning flagged as urgent.

Why Hong Kong’s tokenization agenda raises quantum stakes

HKMA’s quantum initiative arrives as Hong Kong deepens the integration of traditional finance with distributed ledger technology. The regulator’s broader push includes work to tokenize assets and expand digital settlement rails—areas that rely heavily on cryptographic security for confidentiality, authentication and transaction integrity.

Government figures highlighted in related reporting show that Hong Kong has issued three batches of tokenized green bonds totaling about HK$16.8 billion (roughly $2.1 billion) since 2023. At the same time, HKMA continues to advance tokenized deposits and digital-asset settlement efforts through Project Ensemble, a programme designed to explore how tokenized forms of money and assets can move and settle on distributed ledgers.

In practice, the more value that is represented, transferred, and authorized on cryptographically protected networks, the more consequential it becomes if the underlying encryption or signature schemes are eventually weakened by quantum capabilities.

The HKMA’s quantum preparedness framework

In Monday’s announcement, the HKMA introduced both a white paper on quantum preparedness and the sector’s first QPI. The regulator’s central point is that modern distributed ledger applications and payment networks depend on cryptography for core functions, meaning a compromise could translate into operational and trust failures across financial services.

The HKMA’s white paper states that quantum computers capable of running Shor’s algorithm at scale could break widely used public-key cryptography such as RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography. The regulator warns that this could enable attackers to decrypt protected data or forge the digital signatures used to authorize transactions, verify identities and underpin trust in financial systems.

Because cryptographic systems can be embedded deeply in hardware, software and operational processes—and replacement can take years—the HKMA is effectively pushing banks to treat post-quantum migration as a multi-year programme rather than a last-minute upgrade. The regulator urged institutions to begin inventories, conduct risk assessments and develop migration planning well before quantum capabilities become a practical threat.

What the QPI score suggests—and what banks must address next

The gap between the intended endpoint and the current readiness level is stark. With an overall score of 2.3 out of 10, the QPI results imply that many institutions may not yet have translated quantum risk into concrete governance, technical roadmaps, and replacement strategies for cryptography used across their systems.

HKMA’s findings also highlight a planning shortfall: around half of the surveyed institutions reportedly had no formal post-quantum planning. That matters because preparedness is not only about choosing replacement cryptographic algorithms. Banks also need to map where current cryptographic methods are used across their infrastructure, assess dependency chains in distributed-ledger connectivity and settlement workflows, and ensure that upgrades do not disrupt operational continuity.

While the overall picture is cautious, HKMA noted that at least one surveyed institution completed a proof of concept applying post-quantum cryptography to distributed-ledger connectivity. The white paper also referenced HSBC’s 2024 use of quantum-safe technology to move tokenized gold across distributed ledgers—an example that illustrates how quantum-resilience work can show up in real settlement experiments rather than remaining purely theoretical.

Still, the HKMA’s score indicates that these efforts are not yet broad-based enough to lift the sector average. For investors and market participants, the practical takeaway is that compliance, systems readiness and operational risk management around cryptography are likely to become increasingly important as Hong Kong scales tokenized products and distributed settlement services.

Hong Kong’s wider timetable: tokenization now, cryptography upgrades later

HKMA framed the quantum preparedness push within its broader strategy to expand fintech and tokenized finance. The regulator had previously outlined a Fintech 2030 strategy in 2025, where tokenization was identified as a strategic pillar in a plan covering more than 40 initiatives. The approach includes accelerating real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, regularizing tokenized government bond issuance, and exploring tokenized Exchange Fund papers, alongside blockchain settlement supported by mechanisms such as e-HKD, tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins.

Supporting context also came from a speech by Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan, who said banks held more than HK$14 billion in digital assets under custody at the end of 2025—up about 180% year over year—while tokenized deposits had reached HK$29 billion. Those figures underscore the speed at which tokenization-linked activity is growing, even as cryptographic migration planning remains at an early stage.

That combination—rapid adoption of tokenized rails alongside an acknowledged lack of post-quantum preparation—helps explain why HKMA’s framework is structured as a measurable readiness programme with a target by 2030.

For readers watching this space, the key question is how HKMA will turn the QPI into action: whether institutions will formalize post-quantum migration plans at scale, and how quickly banks move from proof-of-concept work to system-wide inventories and upgrade roadmaps as tokenized settlement continues to expand.

A contract that pays one dollar if something happens and nothing if it does not is the simplest instrument in finance and the most legally contested. Here is how event contracts work, where the price comes from, who is allowed to list them, and why regulators still cannot agree whether they are derivatives or bets.

A mobile spyware campaign known as SparkKitty has returned to attention after reports warned that infected iOS and Android apps can expose crypto wallet recovery phrases stored in phone galleries. 

The malware gains photo access, collects images and sends them to attacker-controlled servers.

However, this is not a newly discovered July 2026 threat. Kaspersky published a technical report on June 23, 2025, after finding SparkKitty in Apple’s App Store, Google Play and unofficial channels. A recent Cyberint article has renewed attention around the same malware family.

SparkKitty campaign dates back to 2024

Kaspersky linked SparkKitty to SparkCat, an earlier mobile stealer that used optical character recognition to search screenshots for wallet seed phrases. SparkKitty used related delivery methods, but many samples uploaded gallery images rather than selecting only files containing recovery words.

Researchers also found a related cluster that used OCR to choose particular images. The malware may therefore expose passwords, identity documents and QR codes. Kaspersky said it “believe[s]” the main goal involved crypto assets, while noting that some samples lacked direct proof.

The campaign had operated since at least February 2024 and mainly targeted Southeast Asia and China. As crypto.news reported in June 2025, it spread through fake crypto tools, modified social apps, gambling products and other applications.

In April 2026, Kaspersky reported a new SparkCat variant in two App Store apps and one Google Play app. That finding showed continued use of OCR-based gallery theft, but it did not confirm that SparkKitty itself had returned.

Malware uses photo permissions to steal data

On iOS, researchers found malicious code inside modified frameworks that imitated common development libraries, including AFNetworking and Alamofire. Other versions hid the payload in an obfuscated file named libswiftDarwin.dylib or placed it directly inside an application.

After launch, the malware contacted remote infrastructure and requested access to the photo gallery. Once a user approved the request, it monitored photos and uploaded files that it had not previously sent. It could also collect newly added images.

On Android, SparkKitty appeared in Java and Kotlin versions. Some samples operated as Xposed modules on rooted devices. They contacted command servers and transferred images with information about the infected device and application.

This approach differs from malware that records keystrokes or replaces copied wallet addresses. As crypto.news reported in June 2026, Microsoft tracked separate clipper malware that watched the clipboard, stole wallet credentials and supported backdoor commands.

Infected apps reached official stores

Kaspersky found an Android messaging app with crypto exchange functions on Google Play. The app, named SOEX, recorded more than 10,000 installations before Google removed it after receiving the researcher’s report.

The team also found an iOS crypto app called 币coin in Apple’s App Store. Kaspersky alerted Apple and updated its report on June 25, 2025, to say that Apple had removed the app. Researchers did not determine whether developers knowingly added the malware.

Other versions spread through fake websites, modified TikTok apps, gambling products and directly installed Android packages. Some iPhone campaigns abused enterprise provisioning tools, which let organisations distribute internal apps outside the public App Store.

The latest reporting does not establish that the named applications returned to official stores in July 2026. It also provides no confirmed victim count or total crypto losses. The original listings were removed, while sideloaded copies may still circulate.

Offline seed storage remains the main defence

A seed phrase usually contains 12 or 24 words that can restore every private key linked to a self-custody wallet. Anyone who obtains those words can recreate the wallet and transfer its assets. Changing an app password cannot secure an exposed recovery phrase.

Users should not keep seed phrases in screenshots, cloud albums, email drafts or notes apps. The crypto.news 2026 wallet guide recommends writing the phrase on paper or recording it on metal, then storing it offline securely.

Users should review photo permissions and remove access from apps that do not need it. They should avoid unofficial stores, modified apps and unknown download links. An official listing lowers some risks but does not remove the need to check the developer and requested permissions.

Anyone who believes SparkKitty exposed a seed phrase should create a new wallet on a clean device and move remaining assets immediately. The user should then remove the suspected app, update the device and rotate credentials stored in gallery images.

Current reports have renewed the warning around SparkKitty, but the public technical record traces the campaign to Kaspersky’s 2025 disclosure rather than a new July 2026 discovery.