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Israel’s nascent digital-asset sector is pressing for regulatory clarity and a more supportive footing for innovation. At a Tel Aviv gathering in early February, the Israeli Crypto Blockchain & Web 3.0 Companies Forum unveiled a lobbying drive aimed at reshaping the regulatory regime for stablecoins, tokenization, and tax treatment of tokenized assets. The push is anchored by research from KPMG, which the organizers say could add about 120 billion shekels ($38.36 billion) to the economy by 2035 and help create roughly 70,000 jobs. With policymakers signaling that 2026 could be a turning point for the local crypto scene in the wake of a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire, advocates argue a more permissive framework would unlock a wave of investment and innovation while delivering clearer compliance pathways for businesses.

Key takeaways

  • The Forum’s agenda centers on easing rules around stablecoins and the tokenization of assets, alongside simplifying tax compliance for digital assets.
  • KPMG’s research, cited by the organizers, projects a potential economic boost of 120 billion shekels by 2035 and the creation of about 70,000 jobs if reforms materialize.
  • Public engagement on crypto is already solid in Israel, with estimates suggesting more than 25% of the population having crypto dealings in the last five years and over 20% currently holding digital assets.
  • Banking frictions persist, with local financial institutions reportedly cautious about crypto clients and due diligence processes that can slow even legitimate funding.
  • A national strategy framework endorsed by lawmakers and government agencies envisions a unified regulator, clear token issuance rules, and closer banking integration as core pillars.
  • Broader market context shows steady growth in Israel’s crypto economy, influenced by regional dynamics and post-crisis policy shifts in the wider Middle East.

Sentiment: Neutral

Market context: The push aligns with a broader push in the region toward regulatory clarity for digital assets, as policymakers weigh the balance between innovation and consumer protection. The discussion follows a period of heightened activity in the global crypto space, with regulatory developments and institutional engagement shaping investment flows and product development.

Why it matters

The Israeli Forum’s lobbying effort spotlights a longer arc of policy maturation for digital assets in a country often cited for its deep fintech ecosystem. If the proposed reforms—ranging from tax treatment to token issuance and stablecoin regulation—are enacted, the immediate effect could be a more predictable operating environment for startups and fintechs that already anchor their research and development in Tel Aviv and surrounding hubs. Fireblocks and Starkware, two prominent players in the local crypto ecosystem, figure among the Forum’s sponsors, underscoring the scale of institutional interest in Israel’s ability to convert regulatory clarity into competitive advantage.

Underlying the push is a data-backed argument about public sentiment and ownership. A substantial share of Israelis have engaged with crypto: more than a quarter of the population has interacted with crypto markets in the last five years, and a significant portion remains actively invested in digital assets. Proponents contend that a clearer framework would lower compliance costs, reduce friction with banks, and attract both domestic and international capital. This is not just about niche tech; it is about turning Israel’s fintech strengths into a robust, globally integrated digital assets sector that can attract venture funding and talent while providing tax and regulatory certainty for participants.

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On the policy front, the conversation sits within a broader national strategy. In mid-year, Israel’s National Crypto Strategy Committee presented an interim report to the Knesset, outlining a five-pillar framework that envisions a unified regulator, concrete rules for token issuance, and banking integration as central elements. The Government’s stance toward crypto taxation also evolved in August with the Tax Authority introducing a voluntary disclosure procedure intended to offer a path for taxpayers to come forward with previously undisclosed digital-asset income and assets, in exchange for immunity from criminal proceedings. Officials have acknowledged, however, that participation has fallen short of expectations, even as authorities pledged to push the program through to the end of August 2026. The Tax Authority’s leadership has stressed that the banking sector, which remains wary of cryptocurrency, contributes to the broader challenge of converting voluntary disclosures into practical liquidity for participants.

Beyond national borders, the story intersects with global peers pursuing tokenization and DLT pilots. A related body of work highlights how European pilots and U.S. momentum are shaping the international environment for token-based finance and on-chain markets. While Israel charts its own course, the regional and global context provides a backdrop for what the country is attempting to achieve: a stable, scalable environment in which digital assets can grow responsibly while delivering tangible economic benefits.

The broader narrative also reflects a bifurcated reality in which innovation and risk management must advance together. On one hand, the sector seeks predictable tax rules, a clear regulatory sandbox, and simpler compliance regimes. On the other hand, regulators are tasked with safeguarding consumers and preserving financial stability in the face of rapid innovation. The balance Israel pursues will influence not only domestic growth but its standing as a hub for crypto engineering, tokenized financial services, and cross-border collaboration in a global market that has become increasingly sensitive to regulatory signals.

What to watch next

  • Parliamentary review and potential amendments to the National Crypto Strategy Committee’s interim framework, including expected legislative steps in 2026.
  • Formalization of token issuance rules and a roadmap for banking integration within Israel’s financial system.
  • Updates to the Voluntary Disclosure Procedure, including participation metrics and the timeline for broader outreach beyond August 2026.
  • Regulatory guidance on stablecoins and tokenized assets that clarifies custody, settlement, and consumer protection standards.

Sources & verification

  • Israeli Forum event materials and statements from Nir Hirshman-Rub, February Tel Aviv gathering.
  • KPMG research cited by the Forum outlining potential economic impact from regulatory reforms.
  • Chainalysis report on the Middle East and North Africa crypto adoption and Israel’s crypto economy trajectory.
  • Startup Nation Central data on Israel’s fintech and digital-asset startups, funding, and employment.
  • Israel Tax Authority Voluntary Disclosure Procedure page and related coverage in Globes on participation levels.
  • National Crypto Strategy Committee interim report to the Knesset and related policy discussions.
  • Post-conflict policy references and industry commentary on the Gaza ceasefire and its regulatory implications.

Israel’s regulatory push could redefine the digital asset landscape

Israel’s digital-asset sector stands at a crossroads where policy design could either accelerate growth or slow down momentum built in a vibrant fintech ecosystem. The Forum’s campaign to ease stablecoin and tokenization rules, coupled with streamlined tax treatment, frames a pragmatic path toward scaling innovation while maintaining appropriate guardrails. The numbers backing the push—120 billion shekels in potential economic impact by 2035 and roughly 70,000 new jobs—are meant to illustrate the scale of opportunity that could accompany a well-calibrated regulatory regime. They rest on a foundation provided by KPMG’s research, which the Forum cites as a basis for a policy package that would reduce ambiguity, lower compliance costs, and attract capital.

However, the journey from advocacy to enacted policy is mediated by a complex web of stakeholders. Banks, prosecutors, and tax authorities all play a role in shaping how crypto businesses operate in practice. The banking sector, in particular, has historically shown caution toward crypto-related clients, with due-diligence processes that can feel prohibitive for emerging firms. Executives note that such frictions, if not addressed through clear regulatory language and robust consumer protections, can impede the flow of funds needed to scale projects and attract international partners. The ongoing dialogue between policymakers and industry participants suggests a willingness to align incentives, but implementation remains contingent on legislative debate and regulatory clarity.

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In this context, Israel’s broader strategy—especially the five-pillar framework proposed by the National Crypto Strategy Committee—reads as a blueprint for sustainable growth. A unified regulator, explicit token issuance guidelines, and a plan to integrate banking services with digital-asset activities could reduce fragmentation and build confidence among entrepreneurs and investors alike. Meanwhile, the voluntary disclosure program highlights the government’s intent to formalize a safe channel for asset reporting, even as participation metrics and enforcement timelines indicate that outreach and uptake will be critical in the months ahead. The interplay between domestic policy, corporate innovation, and international perception will shape whether Israel becomes a regional hub for tokenization and crypto engineering or a cautionary tale of regulatory churn.

In the near term, observers will watch for concrete policy moves and parliamentary momentum. The post-2026 regulatory environment will likely hinge on how quickly the nation can translate strategy into risk-managed products and services. The evolving stance on stablecoins, the mechanics of token issuance, and the practical cross-border implications of a unified regulator will all influence investment appetite and the pace of product development. As regional players and global incumbents refine their own regulatory playbooks, Israel’s path could serve as a useful case study in balancing innovation with oversight, and in translating theoretical economic gains into tangible benefits for citizens and businesses alike.

Risk & affiliate notice: Crypto assets are volatile and capital is at risk. This article may contain affiliate links. Read full disclosure

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Strategy’s STRC maintains dividend at 11.5% after steady increases

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Strategy’s STRC maintains dividend at 11.5% after steady increases

Strategy, the world’s largest publicly traded Bitcoin holder, has held the 11.5% dividend rate on its perpetual preferred stock, Stretch (STRC). This marks the first time the product has not seen a dividend increase since the product launched in July 2025.

STRC debuted in July 2025 with a 9% dividend and has since undergone seven dividend increases. The company was able to maintain the current rate after the volume weighted average price (VWAP) for the month reached $99.95, keeping the shares close enough to their $100 par value.

Strategy positions STRC as a short duration, high yield savings alternative. The perpetual preferred stock pays monthly cash distributions, with the dividend rate adjusted each month to support trading near par and limit price volatility.

During Tuesday’s session, STRC held close to par for most of the day. The company is estimated to have purchased over 1,000 BTC, and it took 12 days for STRC to recover back to par following the ex dividend date. It is likely the shares will continue trading near par over the next two weeks, leading up to the April 14 ex dividend date.

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Meanwhile, Strive (ASST), the bitcoin treasury asset manager, saw its own perpetual preferred product, SATA, reach $100 par for the first time. This enabled the company to issue shares through its at the market (ATM) program to fund additional bitcoin purchases. SATA currently offers a dividend rate of 12.7%.

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Aave V4 Launches on Ethereum Mainnet

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Aave V4 Launches on Ethereum Mainnet


Announced at EthCC in Cannes, the upgrade enables institution-specific borrowing environments, structured credit products, and RWA-backed lending within a unified liquidity system.

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Australia passes crypto regulation requiring exchanges to obtain financial services licenses

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Australia passes crypto regulation requiring exchanges to obtain financial services licenses

Australia passed legislation on Wednesday, creating its first comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets that requires crypto exchanges and custody providers to obtain financial services licenses.

The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 cleared both houses on April 1, bringing firms that hold digital assets on behalf of customers into the existing Australian Financial Services Licence regime.

Australia’s bill creates two new regulated categories under the Corporations Act: digital asset platforms, which hold crypto on behalf of users, and tokenized custody platforms, which hold real-world assets and issue a corresponding digital token.

Operators of both must obtain an Australian Financial Services License from ASIC, bringing them under the same core rules as brokers or fund managers, including requirements to safeguard client assets, provide standardized disclosures, avoid misleading conduct, and maintain dispute resolution and compensation systems.

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Instead of regulating crypto itself, the law targets the companies in the middle that control customer funds, aiming to reduce risks like commingling, insolvency, and misuse of assets that have caused losses in past crypto failures.

Research from the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Center and industry groups estimates Australia could generate as much as A$24 billion annually from tokenized markets, payments, and digital assets, roughly 1% of GDP. Under the previous regulatory path, the country was on track to capture just A$1 Billion of that by 2030.

A Kraken spokesperson said the law provides a “top-down signal” that Australia is serious about digital assets, adding that clearer rules would give firms confidence to invest and expand locally.

Kate Cooper, CEO of OKX Australia and co-chair of the Digital Economy Council of Australia, called the bill a “pivotal moment,” saying it establishes a foundation for institutional participation and long-term capital allocation.

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Price of tungsten, sulfur and helium

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How the Iran war is squeezing metals markets and key industries

Almonty’s tungsten mine in Sangdong, South Korea, in March 2026.

Almonty

BEIJING — The Iran war is squeezing a global commodities market already pressured by China’s export controls and stockpiling efforts.

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Prices of three niche elements — tungsten, sulfur and helium — have climbed sharply in recent weeks.

While none of the commodities are traded as widely as oil, the surge indicates how ripple effects from the Middle East conflict could end up restricting production of the semiconductors that power artificial intelligence advances.

Tungsten, a metal nearly as hard as a diamond, creates the electrical connection in the core of a semiconductor chip. Sulfuric acid, a byproduct of sulfur, cleans chip wafers. Helium enables smooth production of semiconductors since the gas prevents unwanted chemical reactions in the manufacturing process.

Those are just some of the ways in which the three elements have become critical for modern manufacturing, including for defense.

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Beijing started to ramp up its control over the critical supplies even before the Iran war started on Feb. 28, partly as tensions with the U.S. escalated over the last few years.

China started restricting tungsten exports just over a year ago, and in December called for tighter limits on sulfuric acid exports. Helium, a gas that’s difficult to store, saw the volume of Chinese imports rise by 15.7% in 2025, after a nearly 65% surge in 2024, according to Wind Information.

The Iran war and the ensuing constraints on the Strait of Hormuz, a critical Middle East shipping route for energy and chemicals, has tipped some oversupply situations into undersupply, while exacerbating existing shortages.

How the Iran war is squeezing metals markets and key industries

Prices of the three commodities have jumped in some cases by more than oil. The widely used fossil fuel has climbed by more than 50% in March, putting Brent on track for a record month.

“While the Chinese supply chain is being viewed as more resilient than many peers, the risk of disruption in chemicals as raw materials for manufacturers in selected segments is higher than expected based on the feedback,” Goldman Sachs analysts said in a report late last week, citing nearly 40 commodity-related meetings and site visits in China.

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Tungsten

Tungsten hit a record high of over $3,000 late last week, marking a surge of well over 50% for the month and more than tripling in price since late December. That’s based on the industry benchmark called “ammonium para tungstate (APT)” in metric ton units, or MTU, from Fastmarket, as quoted by tungsten miner Almonty.

Almonty officially reopened a large tungsten mine in Sangdong, South Korea, earlier this month, and plans to start producing some tungsten this year at a project in the U.S. state of Montana.

The company’s CEO Lewis Black told CNBC that defense sector demand for tungsten has been “extremely strong” since the beginning of last year, but that there’s been no notable change despite the Iran war.

“There’s no material to stockpile. That’s probably the biggest change,” he said.

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Sulfur

The price of sulfuric acid in Africa is now at least 30% higher than it was prior to the war, and is still rising, the Goldman Sachs analysts said, citing a local Chinese miner in Africa.

Other assessments point to a milder rise in prices.

China sulfur prices, including cost and freight, climbed by about 13% from early March to $621 per tonne as of March 26, according to S&P Global Platts.

“A 2-3 month effective blockade would likely become a severe supply shock, especially as freight/insurance stay elevated and Middle East-origin cargoes become harder to execute,” Pan Yuya, lead analyst for sulfur and phosphate raw materials at S&P Global Energy, and Isaac Zhao, senior principal analyst, China fertilizers at S&P Global Energy, said in a March 20 note.

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The S&P analysts said that around 56% of China’s sulfur imports came from the Middle East in 2025.

“Even prior to the Middle East conflict, sulfur prices were rising sharply as the market tightened. With sulfur prices now at fresh record highs, the ‘super squeeze’ in this rather obscure commodity in supply warrants further examination,” HSBC analysts said in a March 16 report.

Helium

Helium prices have roughly doubled since the Iran war began, according to Fitch Ratings.

As most trading occurs through long-term private contracts between industrial gas suppliers and manufacturers, it is difficult to pinpoint industry-wide prices, said Shelley Jang, Fitch’s director of Asia-Pacific corporate ratings.

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Iranian missile attacks this month crippled a key industrial center in Qatar, which produces about one-third of the world’s helium.

That implies helium supply won’t be restored anytime soon, pointed out Christopher Ecclestone, principal and mining strategist at Hallgarten & Company.

In one indication of further market tightness, prices of helium in China’s Henan province have reversed a downturn this year to climb from a Feb. 28 low of 545 yuan ($78.85) a bottle to 600 yuan ($86.81), according to Wind Information.

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Shortages caused by the Iran war are the latest supply chain disruption to rock global markets, which faced similar shocks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the Covid-19 pandemic. That’s pushed companies to diversify, and countries such as China to ramp up stockpiling plans.

“Access to supplies of certain physical materials where production and processing is concentrated in China will become more frequent topics of negotiations with Beijing,” Rhodium Group said in a March 24 report.

Limited price transparency also means the shortage could be worse than available numbers suggest.

Tungsten and helium prices have been surging, “but you don’t have anyone on the buy side saying, ‘oh my goodness, we don’t have enough product,’” Ecclestone said. “Defense contractors should have warehouses of tungsten, but they don’t.”

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“The world has got lazy. It thinks life is like a supermarket, the product is a pack of cornflakes or a few tons of sulfuric acid,” he said. “The supermarket of commodities has had a few of the aisles chopped down.”

Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

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Valinor Raises $25M Seed Round to Bring Private Credit Onchain

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Valinor Raises $25M Seed Round to Bring Private Credit Onchain


The ex-Blackstone team wants to move beyond crypto-collateralized loans and into ‘real economy credit’ as the tokenized RWA sector continues to grow.

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Fidelity says Bitcoin’s Cycle Drawdown is the Mildest Yet

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Fidelity says Bitcoin’s Cycle Drawdown is the Mildest Yet

Bitcoin has declined by about 50% this market cycle, far less than in previous cycles, Fidelity Digital Assets said, adding this trend could continue over time. 

Bitcoin’s post-all-time-high drawdowns have historically been steep, at about 80% to 90%, but this cycle has been about 50%, Fidelity Digital Assets research analyst Zack Wainwright said Tuesday.

One can see the “diminishing returns” that have developed from cycle to cycle when looking at Bitcoin’s price performance from the perspective of the previous all-time high, he said.

“Each cycle has been less dramatic to the upside than the previous,” he said. “Downside risk has been less dramatic in 2026, the current cycle, as well,” he added. 

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Bitcoin’s price hit its current cycle low of just over $60,000 on Feb. 6, a decline of 52% from its Oct. 6 all-time high of about $126,000, according to TradingView. It is currently down 46% from its peak six months ago. 

The previous cycle saw a much larger decline of 77%, from the 2021 all-time high of $69,000 to a bear market low just below $16,000 in November 2022. 

Bitcoin may bottom in late September

Fidelity’s assessment that this Bitcoin cycle is notably shallower than prior cycles “indicates a maturing market with reduced volatility and stronger institutional confidence,” Nick Ruck, director of LVRG Research, told Cointelegraph on Wednesday. 

“This shift signals that Bitcoin is changing from a speculative asset toward a more stable store of value, potentially paving the way for greater adoption in the future.”

Related: Bitcoin’s $10K range expected to hold until spot traders show up: Data

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Meanwhile, Alphractal founder Joao Wedson observed Tuesday that Bitcoin’s top occurred 534 days after the last halving, a shorter span than in the previous cycle.

This “decaying pattern” across cycles suggests the historical bottom may occur between 912 and 922 days after the halving, which “points to a bottom in late September or early October 2026,” he said. 

BTC is below key daily moving averages 

Bitcoin remains below the key 50-day and 200-day exponential moving averages, two long-term trend indicators. 

It is hovering at the 200-week EMA, around $68,000, which has served as a key level of support during previous market downturns. 

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BTC remains below key daily moving averages. Source: TradingView

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