reform

The UK's Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has resumed the investigation into Reform Party leader Nigel Farage's acceptance of donations from the cryptocurrency industry, involving an amount of 6.7 million dollars.

Chairman Paul S. Atkins of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wrote to Robert Walley, Chairman of the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) Operating Committee, indicating that the SEC plans to undertake a comprehensive reform of the CAT system, including adjustments to its governance structure, funding sources, and operational model.Atkins stated that during his tenure, the SEC has significantly reduced the annual operating costs of CAT by issuing exemptions and approving amendments to the CAT NMS plan, and has eliminated the requirement to report personally identifiable information (PII) to the CAT system.These reforms have lowered system costs and the scope of data collection, but CAT still faces fundamental issues regarding costs, governance, and funding mechanisms. To address these issues, the SEC released a concept request for comments on April 16, 2026, to conduct a comprehensive review of CAT and other audit trail systems and data sources used in the regulation of U.S. securities markets.The SEC indicated that it has received hundreds of feedback comments, with one core consensus being that investors and market participants want the SEC to take more responsibility for the management and funding arrangements of CAT.Atkins stated that he has asked SEC staff to propose deep reforms for CAT, including: 1. Exploring new funding sources for CAT, including the use of congressional appropriations and transaction fees under Section 31 of the Securities Exchange Act; 2. Drafting rule proposals that, if approved, would repeal Rule 613 and require exchanges, FINRA, and broker-dealers to continue using the existing CAT infrastructure and reporting standards to submit CAT data directly to the SEC or its designated agency; 3. Assessing the internal resource needs of the SEC to prepare for the SEC's future assumption of governance responsibilities for CAT.The SEC expects that this reform will involve multiple stages and will need to be advanced simultaneously, with the overall transition potentially lasting until the end of 2027.

According to Bitcoin Archive, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce stated that she remains optimistic about the U.S. Congress passing the CLARITY Act and mentioned that there is still much that can be done even if the bill does not pass.Hester Peirce pointed out that the SEC will continue to advance relevant work, and regardless of whether the bill passes, the SEC will strive to push forward; even if the CLARITY Act fails to materialize, regulators still have significant room to promote the construction of a digital asset regulatory framework.Hester Peirce has previously called for clearer regulatory rules for crypto assets, believing that a clear market structure helps the U.S. maintain competitiveness in the digital asset space and reduces the long-term uncertainty faced by the industry.

According to Edaily, the South Korean Ministry of Economy and Finance has finalized the "2026 Tax Reform Bill," which does not include a clause for delaying the taxation of virtual assets. If passed by the National Assembly, profits from virtual asset transactions exceeding 2.5 million won will be taxed at a rate of 22%, with the first declaration due in May 2028.This taxation has been postponed three times previously, and the opposition party has proposed a repeal bill, facing significant opposition amid the current market downturn.

The South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has published an update on its IPO preparation progress. Bithumb stated that it is collaborating with leading domestic accounting firms to advance the construction of its risk management system, converting accounting standards from K-GAAP to internationally accepted K-IFRS, and strengthening internal compliance and internal control processes. The company is also restructuring its business by spinning off Bithumb Asset and clarifying the responsibilities and boundaries of each business segment; at the same time, it is promoting business model diversification and liquidity asset reserves to enhance financial stability.Bithumb claims it will maintain transparent operations by regularly disclosing financial status, operational matters, and cryptocurrency asset holdings, and will collaborate with large domestic and international securities firms, law firms, and accounting firms to assess corporate value and legal risks, as well as to formulate strategies for the pre-listing review.Regarding the timeline, Bithumb plans to complete the upgrade of its internal control system and K-IFRS conversion preparations by 2026, submit the pre-listing review and undergo audits in 2027, and complete the IPO in 2028, with specific timelines potentially adjusted based on market conditions and regulatory review progress.

According to Jinshi, the People's Bank of China held a work meeting for the second half of 2026, emphasizing the steady deepening of financial reform and opening up to the outside world. The meeting pointed out the active development of inter-central bank currency swaps and local currency settlement cooperation, supporting more foreign institutions to participate in the issuance of panda bonds, and promoting the construction of the cross-border payment system for the renminbi, as well as improving the cross-border infrastructure for digital renminbi.

Jiang Yi, Director of the Policy Research Office of the National Development and Reform Commission, stated at a press conference on July 31 that in the first half of the year, China's pace of independent innovation in artificial intelligence has accelerated. Domestic companies such as Deep Exploration and Dark Side of the Moon have successively released open-source large models with parameter scales reaching "trillion" levels, and the global download volume of domestic large models has surpassed 10 billion times. The next step will focus on strengthening research and development in cutting-edge areas such as the basic theory of large models, training and inference efficiency, multimodality, and intelligent agents, and accelerating the layout and construction of national artificial intelligence application pilot bases, while vigorously cultivating intelligent derivative enterprises.Jiang Yi pointed out that there will be a coordinated approach to high-quality development and high-level security, accelerating the legislative process of the "Artificial Intelligence Law", constructing a "development---regulation---security" closed-loop system, establishing and improving technical monitoring, risk warning, and emergency response mechanisms, and adhering to the development concept of "human-led, for human use, and benevolent to humanity," actively responding to the impact of artificial intelligence on economic operation and employment distribution.

The Dark Side of the Moon (Kimi) has been renamed Beijing Dark Side of the Moon Technology Co., Ltd., and the company type has changed from a limited liability company to a non-listed joint-stock company. Yang Zhilin serves as the chairman and manager, Zhang Yutong has been added as a director, and Song Sijia has been added as the financial officer.This change is commonly referred to as a stock reform. The China Securities Regulatory Commission stipulates that if a domestic company directly lists overseas with a domestic entity, the issuer must be a joint-stock company.According to previous reports, the Dark Side of the Moon has issued a shareholder resolution for listing in Hong Kong, with the earliest possible IPO within six months, and has begun dismantling the red-chip structure. The company has not officially announced the listing time.

Trade.xyz issued a statement regarding the SK Hynix contract price spike incident: On July 27 at 23:01 UTC, the marked price of SK Hynix tokens plummeted from $1,127.9 to $917.25, triggering a large number of long position liquidations. This price originated from an actual transaction captured by multiple independent data providers, with the external venue being a major pre-market in South Korea. Its oracle system operates according to established specifications, synchronously tracking prices from external exchanges, functioning "as designed" on a technical level.However, the platform acknowledges that user dissatisfaction with the liquidations triggered by this event is understandable, emphasizing that "market integrity is the core value of Trade.xyz." To address this, Trade.xyz has decided to cover all liquidation losses caused by this price anomaly on a one-time discretionary basis. Specific eligibility requirements will be announced soon, with compensation expected to be completed within a few days, but it clearly states that this decision "does not constitute a guarantee for similar situations in the future." At the mechanism level, the platform will accelerate the review of pricing methods— including reassessing the assumptions of reliance on external venues and giving greater weight to its own order book price discovery (its order book depth and signal strength have significantly improved compared to external sources) to more effectively handle tail events.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal stated that Coinbase has reached a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, with the SEC agreeing to pay $150,000 and amend its record-keeping policies. The lawsuit revealed that the SEC lost nearly a year’s worth of communications from former Chairman Gary Gensler and other senior officials during the peak enforcement period in the cryptocurrency industry.Coinbase had previously requested documents from the SEC regarding how it applies securities laws to digital assets, but the request was denied, leading to a lawsuit that received court support. The SEC claimed that some text messages were lost due to an automatic data deletion process. Grewal pointed out that the SEC has imposed billions of dollars in fines on financial institutions for similar record-keeping issues.In February of this year, Coinbase also reached a settlement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation regarding another Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Coinbase stated that this lawsuit revealed that the FDIC had instructed nearly twenty banks to suspend cryptocurrency-related activities since 2022, which subsequently led to congressional hearings and resulted in a court ruling that the FDIC violated federal law.Grewal stated that both lawsuits revolve around government transparency and due process, emphasizing that the American public has the right to know whether regulatory agencies are restricting legitimate cryptocurrency businesses from accessing banking services through non-public means.

The National Development and Reform Commission officially released the "Action Plan for the Cooperative Development of Artificial Intelligence," aimed at building an open, shared, secure, orderly, and collaboratively governed global artificial intelligence ecosystem. The plan clearly outlines eight core actions, comprehensively promoting deep international cooperation in the AI field from multiple dimensions, including data, computing power, algorithms, talent, and governance. At the foundational level of data and computing power, the action plan emphasizes the need to promote cross-border data flow and build a trustworthy cross-border data space, collaboratively constructing a high-quality corpus; at the same time, it promotes the interconnection of intelligent computing facilities, providing inclusive intelligent computing services to developing countries, and creating low-carbon intelligent computing infrastructure driven by green energy.In terms of industrial empowerment and ecological sharing, the plan encourages the co-construction of an international open-source community for artificial intelligence, promoting the sharing of general large models, basic algorithms, and tool components, and supporting countries in conducting localized innovation based on open-source models. By deepening "Artificial Intelligence +" cooperation, it aims to build a cross-national industrial cooperation platform, promoting the deep application and empowerment of AI technology in fields such as science, manufacturing, healthcare, education, agriculture, and governance. In addition, the plan also proposes the establishment of a joint training mechanism for top digital talent, collaboratively formulating occupational standards and skill certification systems, comprehensively enhancing public literacy, and jointly addressing the structural impacts of AI on employment.Regarding industry rules and technical security, the action plan advocates for the co-construction of rules and standards and collaborative governance for security. All parties will strengthen information sharing on cybersecurity threats and emergency response cooperation, researching ways to enhance the explainability, transparency, and safety of artificial intelligence. Finally, the plan emphasizes adherence to the technological ethics principle of "AI for Good," collaboratively constructing an ethical guideline system dedicated to eliminating algorithmic biases in the forms of racism, discrimination, and others. By promoting international governance cooperation in AI research, it aims to contribute public scientific products to the Global South, effectively serving the United Nations' 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

ENS co-founder Alex Van de Sande proposed a formal draft on Monday, suggesting to delegate 5 million ENS tokens from the ENS DAO's idle community treasury to individual participants to break the current concentration of governance power. Van de Sande pointed out in the proposal that currently, a representative with a sufficient quorum can not only execute any proposal but can also veto the votes of the next 50 representatives, implicitly referring to co-founder Nick Johnson. The tokens come from the unclaimed community treasury shares from the original ENS airdrop five years ago, and participants do not own or cannot sell these tokens. Van de Sande also proposed to add another 5 million tokens for delegation next year, trigger the revocation of delegation after six months of inactivity, and automatically terminate the overall arrangement after two years.This proposal comes at a time when the governance dispute within ENS DAO is escalating: Johnson previously delegated his ENS tokens (approximately 50% of the total delegated amount) to support a proposal to transfer the DAO's operational wallet to the ENS Foundation, and then used his voting power to block the renewal of the security committee, drawing criticism from several community members, with the original The DAO code author Christoph Jentzsch even suggesting to directly dissolve the ENS DAO.

Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett posted on the X platform that after the release of President Trump's financial disclosure documents, Senator Gillibrand once again called for advancing ethical reforms to prohibit the president, congressional members, and their spouses from issuing or sponsoring digital assets.The financial disclosure documents show that President Trump earned over $600 million from his Solana Meme coin in 2025. At the time of this announcement, Senator Gillibrand's long-standing position advocating for stronger ethical rules came under more scrutiny, as reports emerged that her son had raised funds to launch a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange.

South Korea will incorporate tokenized securities into the overall framework of capital market reform. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) recently launched a review meeting on capital market infrastructure to coordinate the advancement of reforms such as speeding up securities settlement, extending trading hours, and digital transformation.According to the plan, the tokenized securities framework will officially take effect in February 2027, and relevant subordinate regulations are expected to solicit public opinions in July this year. In terms of infrastructure development, Samsung SDS has been contracted by the Korea Securities Depository (KSD) to develop a tokenized securities management platform, aiming to integrate the existing electronic securities account system with blockchain data, with the goal of completing this by February 2027.

According to Jinshi reports, the market generally believes that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates unchanged, but it faces uncertainty in economic trends. The new chairman, Waller, is under close scrutiny regarding how he will lead the Federal Reserve. Despite a strong job market and consumer spending, inflation remains above target levels. Analysts expect Waller to reshape the Federal Reserve's communication and policy decision-making, potentially reducing forward guidance on interest rate expectations and adjusting the frequency of press conferences. The chief economist at Oxford Economics predicts that the Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates in June, but the wording will be adjusted, with a baseline forecast of a rate cut in December.

According to La Política Online, the Mexican fintech industry is seeking to promote the Fintech 2 bill reform under the leadership of the new head of the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV), Ángel Cabrera. The industry believes that the Fintech Law passed in 2018 can no longer keep up with the pace of innovation, leading to bottlenecks in the approval process, and there is an urgent need for clearer and more flexible regulatory standards. Key demands include accelerating the authorization process, implementing tiered risk management, conditional authorizations, and comprehensive regulations for open financial models.Regarding crypto assets, Mexican financial authorities still maintain restrictions on such tools, despite the continuous growth of the global crypto market. The industry is seeking progress in the regulation of crypto assets, hoping to establish clearer rules. In addition, the industry also hopes to promote a hybrid model that allows the same platform to integrate services such as payments, credit, and insurance. Experts point out that about 85% of transactions in Mexico are still conducted in cash, and a large portion of the population is not covered by the traditional financial system; updating regulations will help accelerate financial inclusion.

According to The Block, investment bank Benchmark pointed out in its latest research report that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed to repeal Rule 611 and Rule 610(e) of Regulation NMS, which could become the "most decisive regulatory change" affecting the market structure of cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets in 2026.The proposal was announced on June 11 and aims to eliminate trading protection and quote constraint rules that have been in place for nearly 20 years in the U.S. stock market. The SEC stated that this move is intended to reduce trading costs and provide greater space for market competition and technological innovation.Benchmark's analysis believes that the current Rule 611 (order protection rule) requires trades to adhere to the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO), while Rule 610(e) restricts "locked/crossed quotes." These mechanisms are effective in traditional matching systems but create structural constraints for automated market maker (AMM) models in decentralized finance (DeFi).The report pointed out that if the relevant rules are repealed, it will significantly lower the compliance barriers for tokenized stocks and on-chain trading systems, making AMM-based trading models easier to access the U.S. capital market system.In terms of potential beneficiaries, Benchmark specifically mentioned Securitize, believing that it will benefit most directly as a provider of tokenized securities infrastructure, while Coinbase and Galaxy Digital will also benefit from the expansion of trading, market-making, and custody infrastructure. However, the report also emphasized that the rule adjustments do not address all core issues, such as the exchange registration system, custody and clearing framework, and the legal positioning of DeFi-native trading still needs further clarification.The industry generally expects that the subsequent "innovation exemption mechanism" will become a key supporting policy. The SEC has currently opened a 60-day public comment period on the proposal, and the market anticipates that the final vote may take place in early 2027.

The State Duma of Russia has passed a cryptocurrency tax reform bill submitted by the government in the first reading, aiming to further clarify the tax rules related to digital assets. According to the draft, the taxable base for cryptocurrency transactions will be calculated based on the positive difference between income and costs, allowing investors to offset gains and losses from digital currencies and foreign digital rights assets within the same tax period.The bill also requires brokers and trust management institutions to fulfill the obligation of withholding and paying personal income tax in cryptocurrency and foreign digital rights transactions, and to retain relevant transaction vouchers for at least five years. At the corporate level, except for cryptocurrency mining, income and expenditure related to foreign trade involving digital assets will be included in the corporate income tax base, and foreign digital rights assets will also be treated as cryptocurrency for tax purposes.In addition, the Budget and Tax Committee of the State Duma of Russia has suggested further amendments to the bill in the second reading, requiring licensed cryptocurrency exchange platforms to assume tax agency functions, directly withholding personal income tax when users buy and sell cryptocurrencies. If the final legislation is passed, Russia's regulatory system for digital asset taxation will be further improved.