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The cross-border payment company Tazapay, headquartered in Singapore, has completed a Series B extension financing round led by Circle Ventures, bringing the total amount raised in Series B to $36 million.New investors include CMT Digital and Coinbase Ventures, joining Circle Ventures, Peak XV Partners, January Capital, and GMO Venture Partners in this extension round, while existing investors include Ripple, Norinchukin Capital, ARC180, and RTP Global.Tazapay is committed to building cross-border transaction settlement payment infrastructure for businesses and currently holds licenses or has completed registrations in Singapore, Canada, Australia, and the United States, and is applying for relevant licenses in the UAE, the EU, and Hong Kong. The company stated that the funds from this round will be used to obtain more regulatory licenses and develop automated payment process products.

According to Solid Intel, the Central Bank of Kazakhstan plans to use part of its gold and foreign exchange reserves to invest in the cryptocurrency sector, with an amount of up to $350 million. Currently, the official has not disclosed the specific asset categories and timeline for the investment.

According to the Financial Times, the "Board of Peace," led by U.S. President Trump, is exploring the issuance of a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar to support the digital transaction system in the Gaza Strip.Insiders indicate that the stablecoin will serve as "a way for Gaza residents to make digital payments." The Gaza region is currently facing a severe humanitarian crisis, making cash access extremely difficult. Many bank facilities and ATMs have been destroyed or closed, while new cash deliveries are also restricted, leading local residents to increasingly rely on digital payment methods.The stablecoin proposal has been put forward against this backdrop, aiming to establish a basic financial transaction infrastructure. The project is spearheaded by Israeli tech entrepreneur Liran Tancman, in collaboration with organizations such as the "National Committee for Gaza Administration" (NCAG). Sources indicate that the plan includes not only the stablecoin but also the establishment of a "secure digital infrastructure" to support electronic payments, financial services, online education, and healthcare systems as an open platform, allowing users to control their own data.

According to market news, Kazakhstan's central bank investment subsidiary "NIC" announced that it will utilize cryptocurrencies confiscated from criminals by law enforcement, along with foreign currency and gold reserves, to expand the newly established national cryptocurrency reserve fund.The company's head, Timur Suleimenov, stated that $350 million worth of foreign exchange and gold has been allocated as initial funding for the fund. The central bank does not plan to directly hold cryptocurrencies at this stage, but will invest through five selected hedge funds and will invest in cryptocurrency venture capital funds. President Tokayev stated at a national financial regulatory agency meeting that the police have closed 130 illegal cryptocurrency exchanges, confiscating assets worth over $5 million, and instructed agencies to develop specific proposals to combat cryptocurrency crime.

According to Cryptopolitan, Kazakhstan's President Tokayev has signed the "Law on Banks and Banking Activities" and the "Amendments to the Regulation and Development of Financial Markets," aimed at relaxing cryptocurrency trading rules and promoting fintech innovation. The new legislation defines digital financial assets (DFAs) as a new asset class, divided into three categories: stablecoins, tokenized physical assets, and electronic financial instruments.Under the new regulations, the National Bank of Kazakhstan will be responsible for issuing licenses to cryptocurrency exchanges, creating a list of cryptocurrencies allowed for circulation, and regulating the market to prevent money laundering. Commercial banks are permitted to invest in fintech companies and develop innovative financial products, including mobile payments and a digital tenge system.

According to Jinshi reports, ECB Governing Council member Kazaks stated that if the independence of the Federal Reserve is weakened in any way, this effect is likely to be transmitted to ordinary consumers in the United States through higher inflation rates, which will subsequently lead to rising interest rates to curb inflation.

According to Jinshi reports, ECB Governing Council member Kazaks stated that the Fed's actions are concerning.

Kazakhstan President Tokayev listened to the report on the work of the Financial Supervisory Authority (AFM) for 2025, which has completed investigations into 1,135 criminal cases, compensated victims with 141.5 billion tenge, dismantled 15 criminal gangs and 29 platforms engaged in illegal cashing, with a transaction volume exceeding 128 billion tenge. It has also cracked down on the activities of 22 underground cryptocurrency exchange locations involved in money laundering from drug trafficking and fraud, and banned over 1,100 illegal online cryptocurrency trading services and 20,000 deposit cards used for money laundering.

LazAI Alpha Mainnet Officially LaunchedThe LazAI Alpha mainnet is now officially live, running on enterprise-grade infrastructure, utilizing the QBFT consensus mechanism, and implementing METIS-based settlement on networks based on the Metis SDK (including Hyperion). This marks a significant transition of AI data from a centralized training model to a new stage of verifiable and assetizable on-chain economy.Real-time Anchoring and AssetizationThe Alpha mainnet achieves real-time anchoring and assetization of AI interaction data. All conversations and interactions users have with AI Agents like Lazbubu and SoulTarot will be minted into unique "Data Anchoring Tokens (DAT)." Through the METIS settlement layer and PoS verification mechanism, these can be transformed into on-chain assets with transparent traceability and revenue attribution, becoming verifiable on-chain assets that users can hold, establishing a trustworthy foundation for the AI economy.Developer IncentivesDevelopers can now deploy verifiable AI Agents through LazAI Docs and the Alith framework. Additionally, LazAI will launch a developer incentive program with a total prize pool of 10,000 METIS, covering full-stage support from early prototypes (Ignition Grants) to mature applications (Builder Grants), and providing multi-level ecosystem empowerment, including cross-social channel promotion and user growth funding pools.

The mayor of the Solana economic community, Farhaj Mayan, stated at the Solana Breakpoint conference that Kazakhstan is systematically advancing its national-level cryptocurrency and blockchain strategy with Solana as the core infrastructure.Related initiatives include the establishment of a Solana economic special zone, the launch of a Tenge stablecoin, the promotion of dual listing IPOs on AIX and Solana, the training of 1,000 Solana developers, the establishment of a national-level cryptocurrency asset reserve, and the planning of a blockchain-centric CryptoCity, demonstrating its determination to deeply embed blockchain into the national financial and industrial system.

According to market news, the National Bank of Kazakhstan is preparing to invest up to $300 million in cryptocurrency instruments.The head of the country's regulatory agency, Timur Suleimenov, revealed this information at a press conference. Zakon.kz quoted Suleimenov as saying, "This does not mean we have set aside $300 million for investment; the investment amount may be limited to $50 million, or it could be $100 million, or $250 million. Given the decline in the entire cryptocurrency market, people are rethinking the prospects for monetization, profitability, etc. This is a very challenging task." Suleimenov reminded that this fund does not come from the Kazakhstan National Fund, but from the central bank's gold and foreign exchange reserves. Within this reserve framework, a portfolio has already been created for investing in high-tech stocks and other financial instruments related to digital financial assets, but the regulatory agency is not in a hurry to invest. Suleimenov stated, "We will not rush to make these decisions until good investment opportunities arise. After the current decline in all digital, financial, and crypto assets, we need to wait and see before making investment decisions. We will not rush to achieve results."

The report "2025 Cyber Threat Trends and 2026 Security Outlook" released by AhnLab shows that the North Korean-backed hacker group Lazarus has been named the most frequently in the past 12 months, primarily using "spear phishing" to carry out attacks, often disguising themselves as seminar invitations, interview requests, and other emails to lure targets into opening attachments. The report states that Lazarus is considered the main suspect in several major attacks, including the Bybit hacking incident on February 21 this year (resulting in a loss of $1.4 billion) and the recent $30 million vulnerability attack on the South Korean exchange Upbit.AhnLab indicates that to enhance security, companies need to establish a multi-layered defense system, including regular security audits, timely patch updates, and strengthening employee education. The company also recommends that individual users employ multi-factor authentication, handle unknown links and attachments with caution, avoid excessive exposure of personal information, and only download content from official channels. AhnLab points out that with the widespread use of AI applications, attackers will find it easier to generate indistinguishable phishing emails, spoofed pages, and deepfake content, and related threats may further complicate in the future. (Cointelegraph)

According to RBC, the National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) is considering investing up to $300 million in crypto assets, but has not yet locked in a final amount, which could range from $50 million to $250 million.NBK Chairman Timur Suleimenov stated that due to the recent significant decline in the crypto market, they need to "let the dust settle" before cautiously entering the market, with funds coming from the central bank's foreign exchange reserves rather than the national fund. Kazakhstan has previously established a national-level crypto fund, Alem Crypto Fund, and completed its first investment in BNB.

Regarding Upbit's incident of approximately 44.5 billion KRW (about 36 million USD) in cryptocurrency being stolen, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju stated today that the attack method disclosed by Upbit is "almost impossible for an ordinary hacker to accomplish."Upbit previously mentioned that the attackers might have "inferred the private keys" by analyzing the patterns of user wallet addresses. Ki Young Ju bluntly remarked that the difficulty of such attack techniques is extremely high, and if this is true, "I suspect that no hacker organization other than North Korea's Lazarus could achieve this."

According to Yonhap News Agency, South Korean virtual asset exchange Upbit has suffered a hacker attack, resulting in the theft of virtual assets worth 44.5 billion won. Currently, the North Korean reconnaissance agency's hacker organization Lazarus Group is highly suspected to be behind this incident.Local time, Yonhap News Agency learned from the information and communication technology (ICT) industry and relevant South Korean government departments that, given the significant suspicion surrounding the hacker organization Lazarus Group under the North Korean reconnaissance agency, authorities are conducting on-site inspections of Upbit. This hacker organization was previously implicated in the theft of 58 billion won worth of Ethereum from Upbit in 2019. A government official stated, "This attack is unlikely to have targeted the server; it is more probable that the administrator account was stolen, or that the attacker disguised themselves as an administrator to transfer funds." He also mentioned, "Based on the information currently available, the hackers used this method six years ago, so it is speculated that the same method was employed this time."

According to Bloomberg, Kazakhstan is establishing a national cryptocurrency reserve fund valued between $500 million and $1 billion, with part of the funding sourced from assets seized and repatriated from abroad.Central Bank Governor Timur Suleimenov stated that the fund's investments will include exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and stocks of companies involved in digital currency businesses. In an interview, he mentioned that the fund will be "very cautious about directly holding cryptocurrencies."Suleimenov revealed that the fund is expected to officially launch by the end of the year or in January next year.

According to Cryptopolitan, Berik Sholpankulov, the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Kazakhstan, revealed that the regulatory body may invest government-controlled funds as well as part of the country's gold and foreign exchange reserves in cryptocurrencies.Sholpankulov announced this news in the lower house of the Kazakh parliament while responding to questions from members of the legislative body. The lawmakers specifically asked him to explain how the reserves would operate, how funds would be accumulated, and whether the country's central bank would buy and sell digital currencies for profit.Sholpankulov reminded Kazakh lawmakers that the government is currently working on establishing a national cryptocurrency reserve. He elaborated that the cryptocurrency assets confiscated in criminal cases would primarily be allocated to this new fund and preserved as a strategic reserve, while also discussing other supplementary reserve options, such as considering using part of the national fund and assets from the gold and foreign exchange reserves to invest in crypto assets.

ChainCatcher news, Blockscout and Google Analytics data show that since the launch of the Web3 native AI infrastructure protocol LazAI on the testnet two months ago, the user base has been continuously increasing, with a total of 33,000 active users.The flagship product, the companion AI Agent Lazbubu, which combines data anchoring token (DAT) gameplay, has shown active performance, with a total of 8.419 million messages generated by users, and on-chain interactions exceeding 1.669 million times, with over 90,000 on-chain interactions in the last 24 hours. In addition, the total number of Lazbubu DAT assets minted by users has reached 14,000.

ChainCatcher news, according to WatcherGuru, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao met with the President of Kazakhstan to discuss cryptocurrency issues.

ChainCatcher news, according to GOV.KZ, Kazakhstan has launched the "Alem Crypto Fund," established by the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, managed by Qazaqstan Venture Group, and registered in the AIFC.The fund is positioned for long-term allocation of digital assets and strategic reserves, and may be used for national-level savings in the future. Its strategic partner is Binance Kazakhstan, with the first investment being BNB, used for transaction processing, fee payments, and governance. The official statement claims that the market value of BNB exceeds 13.8 billion USD. The fund aims to serve large investors and become the foundation of the digital national reserve.