Extreme weather events have become routine with climate change globally. In 2024, U.S. farmers lost over $20 billion to wildfires, floods, hurricanes, hail, frost, and tornadoes. Canadian producers face similar difficulties: 51% of operations suffered from drought in 2022 and 2023, while 26% experienced flooding. British Columbia alone saw almost $460 million in losses last year. Producers in developing nations like Kenya or Brazil, who don’t have access to the same technologies as their peers in North America, are even more vulnerable.

When a farm is hit by a flood or a drought, the physical damage is compounded by the fact that the operation’s economic activity ceases. Each week without compensation means lost seeds, missed planting, and mounting debt. Yet most insurance systems remain stuck in the past. After Pakistan’s devastating 2022 floods, many smallholders waited months for disaster aid to clear local banks. By the time funds arrived, the planting season had already passed, and worse, vulnerable farmers may have been unable to pay expenses to keep their farms viable for the following season.

As climate volatility increases, farmers need faster and more reliable support. One unexpected technology might finally close that gap: stablecoins. These digital tokens are designed to always keep the value of government-issued currencies like the U.S. dollar. Far from being just another crypto fad, stablecoins could underpin instant, programmable insurance that leverages real-time weather data.

Shock disasters, slow money

Traditional insurance depends on human verification. Adjusters must visit farms, file reports, and route payments through banks that rarely reach rural communities. Even in advanced economies, it can take months, and in developing nations, it can be a year-long process. 

If disasters strike in seconds, payouts must move just as fast. Stablecoins are able to move value across borders in milliseconds, 24/7, with full transparency. Unlike bank wires, they don’t close for weekends or holidays. And unlike checks, they don’t depend on local banking infrastructure.

For a Canadian farmer in a remote, rural region, the technology can prove transformative. Using only a smartphone, they can receive climate insurance payouts directly to their digital wallet, without passing through the clunky banking sector.

Besides, not all producers have access to banking services in the first place. El Salvador counts almost 400,000 farmers, but 70% of the total population is unbanked, so only 32 000 Salvadoran farmers have access to agricultural credit. Stablecoins can help bridge that gap, turning smartphones into financial access points.

NGOs already use this model. The UN Refugee Agency has sent stablecoin-based emergency funds to displaced families in Ukraine, bypassing weeks of banking delays. If stablecoins can reach war zones, they can certainly reach farms.

Smart contracts can make insurance payouts automatic

Stablecoins become even more powerful when combined with smart contracts, which are software programs that can autonomously trigger an action (for example, send out payments) when specific events occur. In climate insurance, this enables parametric coverage, where payouts are linked to weather thresholds.

We can easily imagine a system where, if rainfall drops below a set level and thereby signals a drought, a blockchain contract would automatically send out stablecoin payouts to those affected. The data would come from verified, neutral weather data providers, not human claims adjusters. The system would drastically cut paperwork, delays, and especially subjective decisions on the part of insurance companies. 

Platforms like Arbol already use a system like this to send automatic stablecoin payments to farmers affected by extreme weather events. What once took weeks of processing now happens in minutes, with no room for corruption or error.

Transparency builds trust

Beyond speed, stablecoins offer something equally valuable: trust. Billions in climate aid and insurance funds vanish each year into administrative black holes. Blockchain-based payments are transparent by design; it’s easy to have visibility into each transaction.

That transparency is already restoring credibility to climate finance. The Lemonade Foundation’s Crypto Climate Coalition, for instance, uses stablecoins to deliver verifiable payouts to African farmers. Every transfer can be traced from donor to recipient, ensuring funds go where they’re meant to.

When speed and transparency combine, confidence follows. Farmers can plan their next planting season with certainty. Donors can see their money at work. And policymakers can measure results instantly, not months later.

Stablecoins are often viewed through the lens of crypto speculation, but their promise lies in their utility. Their features make them ideal for solving one of humanity’s oldest problems: managing risk in an unpredictable world. Stablecoins won’t stop the next drought or flood, but they can make recovery faster, fairer, and more predictable.

TLDR:

• Binance and founder Changpeng Zhao had all civil terrorism financing claims dismissed by a Manhattan federal judge.
  
• The 535 plaintiffs failed to prove Binance culpably linked itself to 64 terrorist attacks from 2017 to 2024.
  
• Judge Vargas ruled the 891-page complaint was excessive but allowed plaintiffs to file an amended version.
  
• Zhao accused plaintiffs of piggybacking on Binance’s 2023 guilty plea and its $4.32 billion criminal penalty.

Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao have secured the dismissal of a major civil lawsuit. A federal judge in Manhattan ruled in their favor on Friday, March 7.

The case involved 535 plaintiffs, including victims and their relatives, tied to 64 terrorist attacks. The plaintiffs sought to hold Binance and Zhao financially liable for alleged cryptocurrency transfers to terrorist groups.

The attacks reportedly took place between 2017 and 2024 across several parts of the world.

Court Finds No Culpable Link Between Binance, Zhao, and Terrorist Organizations

U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas presided over the case in Manhattan’s federal court. She found that the plaintiffs did not sufficiently allege that Binance or Zhao participated in the attacks.

The judge ruled that neither defendant “culpably associated themselves with these terrorist attacks, participated in them as something they wanted to bring about, or sought by their actions to ensure their success.” Their only connection to the groups was through standard, arm’s-length transactions on the exchange.

The plaintiffs attributed the attacks to several designated foreign terrorist organizations. These included Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Islamic State.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Kataib Hezbollah, and al Qaeda were also named in the complaint. Plaintiffs alleged that hundreds of millions in cryptocurrency flowed through Binance to these groups.

They also alleged billions in transactions with Iranian users were used to benefit attack proxies. Judge Vargas acknowledged Binance and Zhao may have had general awareness of financing risks.

However, she noted that their only tie to the organizations was that “they, or their affiliates, had accounts on, and have transacted on, the Binance exchange in an arms’ length relationship.” Awareness alone was not enough to establish legal liability under the law.

The judge further noted the complaint’s excessive length in her ruling. The 891-page, 3,189-paragraph filing was called “wholly unnecessary” despite its “weighty” allegations. Plaintiffs were given the option to file an amended complaint going forward.

Binance’s $4.3 Billion Criminal Penalty and Its Tie to the Dismissed Case

Zhao argued in court filings that plaintiffs sought to exploit Binance’s prior criminal proceedings. In November 2023, Binance pleaded guilty to violating federal anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws.

The exchange paid a $4.32 billion criminal penalty as part of that resolution. Zhao contended the plaintiffs tried to “piggyback” on that case to pursue triple damages under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The court rejected that approach and dismissed all claims against the defendants. Both Binance and Zhao had condemned terrorism throughout their court filings. Their papers made clear that neither party sought to support or facilitate any terrorist activity.

Following the ruling, a Binance spokesperson issued a statement: “Binance was pleased to see that the court in this case correctly dismissed these baseless allegations. Binance takes compliance seriously and has no tolerance for bad actors on its platform.” The exchange also referenced a letter sent to Senator Blumenthal on the same day.

Neither Zhao’s legal team nor the plaintiffs’ lawyers were immediately available for comment. Plaintiffs retain the right to file an amended complaint following the dismissal. No timeline for a potential refiling has been publicly announced as of Friday.

Canada has completed a pilot program testing the use of distributed ledger technology in bond markets, culminating in the issuance of the country’s first tokenized bond, according to a Friday announcement from the Bank of Canada.

The experiment, known as Project Samara, involved the Bank of Canada, Export Development Canada, Royal Bank of Canada and TD Bank Group, and explored if blockchain-style infrastructure could streamline bond issuance, trading and settlement.

As part of the pilot, Export Development Canada issued a $100 million Canadian dollar ($73.6 million) bond with a maturity of less than three months to a closed group of investors. The security was issued, traded and settled on a distributed ledger platform, with payments processed using wholesale central bank deposits rather than commercial bank money.

The platform, built on Hyperledger Fabric, let participants manage the full lifecycle of the security, including issuance, bidding, coupon payments, redemption and secondary trading, while integrating separate ledgers for cash and bonds to enable near-instant settlement.