Bitcoin Magazine
Crypto Exchange HTX Agrees to Leave UK in Settlement With FCA
Justin Sun’s HTX has agreed to leave the United Kingdom, closing the Financial Conduct Authority’s first enforcement case against a crypto firm over financial promotions. The regulator announced the settlement today, ending a High Court action that began in October 2025, according to Financial Times reporting.
Under the court undertakings, Huobi Global S.A., the Panama-registered company behind the HTX brand, has promised not to communicate financial promotions that breach UK law across its website, apps and social media channels.
The FCA says the exchange is no longer active in Britain. UK customers cannot deposit funds, and new users cannot register. Existing customers have 48 hours to withdraw assets before their accounts close.
The regulator framed the outcome as a warning. Steve Smart, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said that being based overseas does not place a firm beyond the reach of UK law.
Smart said that ‘Crypto firms should be under no illusion: being based overseas does not put them beyond the reach of UK law. Our action means HTX is leaving the UK and can no longer target UK consumers. The message to other firms is clear: follow the rules or face the consequences.’
The regulator said HTX had failed to really engage over several rounds of talks of the case. Settlement talks began in March and were extended in June
HTX presents a different account. The exchange says it has put measures in place to align with UK promotion rules.
“We take local compliance requirements seriously and have proactively implemented measures to align with the UK’s financial promotion regulations,” the company said in a statement, according to Reuters.
The settlement terms remain confidential, and the FCA says the deal involves no admission of liability or wrongdoing. Public reporting does not say whether any fine was paid.
In May, the UK sanctioned Huobi Global over alleged support for Russia’s financial sector, listing HTX as another name for the designated entity.
In July, the European Union named Huobi Global in its 21st Russia sanctions package and barred EU transactions with the exchange, stopping short of a full asset freeze. HTX says Huobi Global S.A. is distinct from the online exchange.
Back in August, Kraken clients were briefly locked out of their accounts after receiving tiny amounts of cryptocurrency linked to sanctioned funds in what was known as a dust attack. Kraken said the attacks aimed to trigger compliance checks and spread sanctioned funds across platforms, causing operational disruptions for thousands of users.
Around 12,000 transfers were reportedly sent from a wallet linked to HTX. Kraken’s compliance team quickly restored customer access while retaining the sanctioned funds and working with authorities to prevent further attacks.
This post Crypto Exchange HTX Agrees to Leave UK in Settlement With FCA first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
OPINION — A recent survey of African youth challenges conventional wisdom on foreign aid. Policymakers should take heed of their views as they design the future of U.S. foreign assistance to increase effectiveness and American soft power on the continent.
We ask a lot of our aid to Africa. Over the years, it has saved countless lives from HIV/AIDS and malaria, fed the hungry, stopped pandemics, and increased farmers’ yields. We take it for granted that our good intentions are appreciated by Africans, augmenting American soft power and influence.
Yet, what if those assumptions don’t hold? What if our aid simply did not have the positive reception we thought it did? Today, in the wake of USAID’s shutdown, the entire architecture of foreign aid is under review, with many studies, commissions, and proposals underway. Now would be the time to dig deeper to understand what Africans want from aid. Doing so would help us be more effective and relevant, with the added benefit of increasing American soft power.
In August, the Ichikowitz Family Foundation of South Africa conducted its fourth iteration of the African Youth Survey, the most extensive continent-wide survey of African youth. This year’s survey included questions specifically about USAID cuts, and its findings blow up any illusions we might have had about young Africans feeling hopeless over USAID’s departure.
After 21 years with USAID in places like Uganda and South Sudan, where my focus was out-of-school youth, and a tour as mission director to Somalia that was canceled by USAID’s shutdown, I thought I understood how African youth viewed us. I was wrong. Three findings in particular challenged my preconceptions and provide important lessons as we design the future of U.S. foreign assistance.
Less Than Half Will Miss USAID
The survey was conducted in places that had enormous USAID programs, like Nigeria, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and many others. Yet, only 46% of respondents thought USAID cuts would have a negative impact. Fully 26% saw a positive impact, 16% saw no impact, and 11% did not know.
However, the researchers also commented, “Just over a quarter (26%) take a more optimistic view, believing the closure will force leaders to confront domestic challenges directly.”
This idea was certainly borne out during my Africa tours with USAID. Often, the U.S. budget for health far exceeded the country’s national budget for the sector, allowing the country to direct spending elsewhere, such as Russian-made fighter jets, as happened in Uganda in 2011.
The lesson: Our foreign assistance should be part of a larger bilateral partnership with mutual accountability, where the country must increase its own domestic spending on the sector in tandem with our assistance.
China Is Viewed More Positively Than the U.S., Despite Flaws
When asked about the influence of China and the U.S. on their countries, again, the results are surprising. China is fully ten percentage points ahead of the U.S. regarding whether the influence is positive (95% for China, 85% for the U.S.).
Is this a reaction to the Trump administration? In 2024, results for the same question were similar, with China slightly ahead. However, positive responses for the U.S. actually went up during Trump’s tenure (from 79% in 2024 to 85% in 2026).
Key to this finding is a related one in the 2026 report: 58% of respondents thought that the U.S. would disregard international law to gain access to natural resources. Recent actions like the capture of Nicolás Maduro and asserting ownership over Venezuela’s oil showed a disregard for international law. Respondents may be surmising that the same could apply to African natural resources.
What is astounding about China’s strength on this question is the abundance of evidence that China is highly transactional with its aid recipients, often leaving them indebted and in weaker positions. That was certainly the case with South Sudan’s “Oil for Roads” deal, widely disparaged by locals and diplomats when I served there.
Why aren’t widely known stories like this one reflected in the responses? Emmanuel Kwezi Tabaro, an analyst of the 2026 survey, explained:
“Young Africans are not uninterested in geopolitics, but they appear far more concerned with the practical realities that shape daily life: jobs, infrastructure, economic opportunity and the cost of living. When they think about international partnerships, many are asking less about ideology and more about whether those partnerships will improve their prospects.”
China is seen as meeting youth where they are, which leads to the third finding.
The lesson: With huge youth populations in Africa, increase programs specifically for youth that prepare them for jobs, like training and leadership programs, and adulthood, such as family planning.
It’s the Economy, Stupid
Actually, it’s about jobs. When asked about the biggest threats to African communities, 54% of respondents said unemployment and poverty, not violent crime (20%), gangs (17%), or terrorism (16%). When asked what government priorities should be to improve security, 56% of respondents said job creation for young people, far ahead of military investment (35%) or improvements to policing (29%).
Why are questions about threats and security coming back to jobs? Jihane Cherif, another analyst of the 2026 survey, answered:
“A young person who cannot find work, cannot afford to eat, and cannot see a way forward within the system does not feel protected by a well-equipped police force. They feel abandoned by it.”
The lesson: As in the World Bank’s new strategy, keep a laser focus on the bottom line of job creation for the millions of youth entering the workforce each year.
The Bottom Line
In the great power competition being played out in Africa, we cannot take for granted that our generous assistance will lead to increased positive views of the U.S. This survey shows a rising generation of savvy youth that sees the whole picture of U.S. policy, questions rhetoric, and asks fair questions about the impacts on their lives of billions of dollars of assistance. Hearing their concerns will result not only in more effective aid programs, but also in increased American influence across the continent.
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South Africa is taking an important step towards answering a question that has hung over its crypto market for years:
How should crypto assets be treated under the country’s rules on moving money across its borders?
The problem is not new.
South Africa has long run an exchange-control system to manage capital flowing in and out of the country. The National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), through its Financial Surveillance Department (FinSurv), administer it under the Exchange Control Regulations of 1961.
The problem is that crypto does not fit neatly into a system built around banks, foreign currencies and conventional payment channels.
That raises a legal question:
Is crypto “capital” for the purposes of exchange control?
Two High Court decisions show the uncertainty.
In Standard Bank of South Africa Ltd v South African Reserve Bank, SARB had forfeited funds linked to cryptocurrency transactions involving Leo Cash and Carry (Pty) Ltd.
Standard Bank challenged the forfeiture, arguing that cryptocurrency was not “capital” under Regulation 10(1)(c). The court agreed, finding that cryptocurrencies fell outside the definitions of “money” and “capital” in the Regulations, and set the forfeiture aside.
In Mangundhla & Dangaiso, the court went the other way. The case involved roughly 1,680 Bitcoin, bought in South Africa and valued at under R182 million, which were sent to wallets reachable through exchanges outside the country. SARB forfeited certain Bitcoin and funds held in the applicants’ Standard Bank and Luno accounts.
This time the court held that Bitcoin could constitute capital, based on the ordinary meaning, context and purpose of the legislation.
This result is the real gap.
If crypto is capital, its cross-border movement can fall under exchange control. If it is not, applying the old framework becomes very difficult. The position is also still unsettled, because the Standard Bank decision is subject to appeal. The courts exposed the problem, but they did not solve it.
That is the background to the Draft Capital Flow Management Regulations, 2026, published for public comment on 17 April 2026. On 15 May 2026, the National Treasury and SARB followed with a joint statement covering, among other things, how crypto assets are treated, held and traded, and how they move across borders.
The draft regulations are broader than crypto. They are meant to replace the 1961 regulations and modernise how South Africa manages international capital flows, moving towards a risk-based, surveillance-oriented model. Instead of relying mainly on prior approvals, the aim is to let legitimate transactions flow while strengthening reporting, monitoring and intervention for high-risk activity.
For crypto, the key point is that the draft does not build a separate system. It places crypto assets inside the existing framework, alongside foreign currency, securities and gold.
Buying and selling
Purchases, sales, borrowing and lending of crypto above a set threshold would generally have to go through an Authorised Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP), or otherwise meet permission requirements. A CASP could only carry out the activities it is authorised for, and the National Treasury could add conditions or bar it from dealing with particular people, assets or transactions.
Moving crypto abroad
This is arguably the most significant part. Taking or sending crypto out of South Africa, delivering it for removal, and certain payments involving people outside the country would generally need permission from the National Treasury or an authorised body.
Declaring foreign crypto
A person in South Africa who gains control or possession of a foreign asset or crypto asset may have to declare it within a set period. The declaration would cover when and how it was acquired, where it is held and whether it is linked to a foreign liability. Once declared, later sales or transfers could be restricted.
Seizure, blocking and forfeiture
If there are reasonable grounds to believe crypto is connected to a contravention, authorities could seize it or block dealings with it in an account, and it could eventually be forfeited to the State.
The draft even deals with the practicalities of crypto: after forfeiture, the previous holder may be required to hand over the passwords, PINs or codes needed to access the assets.
The proposed draft contains safeguards. Forfeiture decisions must comply with the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, and affected people can challenge attachment, blocking, and forfeiture through judicial review.
The Draft Crypto Asset Manual for Cross-Border Activities supplies the operational detail. Its main job is to say when a crypto transaction becomes a cross-border one for exchange-control purposes.
These flows are intended to be identifiable and reportable to FinSurv.
With a non-custodial wallet, the user holds the private keys and there is no intermediary holding the assets. Even so, the framework treats a transfer from a domestic CASP to such a wallet as an outward movement of value.
It also takes a stricter line on certain inward transfers from non-custodial wallets, treating them as non-permissible. The focus is not on whether an asset sits on a blockchain, but on where the value comes from, where it goes and whether it crosses the border.
For now, the Manual is narrow on who can send crypto offshore. Individuals can do so through authorised CASPs using their existing foreign-exchange allowances, such as the Single Discretionary Allowance (SDA) or Foreign Capital Allowance (FCA), subject to the applicable requirements. That is not a general permission for every person or business to move crypto abroad, and other categories will depend on the final rules.
Taken together, the draft is not trying to prohibit cross-border crypto activity. It is trying to make crypto movements visible to the capital-flow system. Exchange control was designed for a world of identifiable institutions and bank accounts, and crypto can move value across borders without passing through any of them. The trigger-point approach gives regulators a way to see when that movement matters.
It is also activity-based.
At this stage it does not distinguish between types of crypto asset, and it does not treat crypto as official currency or legal tender.
So the framework is less about whether Bitcoin or a stablecoin is “money,” and more about whether an activity amounts to a movement of value that should be subject to capital controls.
This will sit on top of existing oversight.
The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) and the South African Revenue Service (SARS) already play roles in regulating crypto activity. A crypto business may therefore need to ask two separate things:
Am I authorised to provide this service, and does this particular transaction create an exchange-control or reporting obligation?
The draft regulations supply the legal architecture for bringing crypto into South Africa’s capital-flow regime, and the Manual supplies the practical test for when a transaction is caught.
What I find most telling is where the rules choose to focus. They do not try to settle what crypto is. They regulate what crypto does when it crosses a border.
That is a pragmatic response to the court split, because it sidesteps the “is it capital?” debate by looking at the movement of value instead.
For businesses and users, three questions will matter most:
For regulators, the goals are clear: better visibility over cross-border crypto flows, fewer chances for regulatory arbitrage and stronger detection of illicit finance, without choking off legitimate digital-asset use.
The open question is how well that balance survives the final text. Rules on non-custodial wallets, in particular, will test whether visibility can be achieved without making ordinary self-custody impractical.
The proposals are still subject to consultation and may change. But the direction is clear. Crypto may be borderless, but its movement across South Africa’s borders will increasingly come with rules on permission, reporting and oversight.
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Moving Crypto Out of South Africa? What the Draft Capital Flow Rules Mean for Your Business was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
TL;DR: The FCA is consulting on updated financial crime guidance for crypto businesses, including customer checks, blockchain analytics and the Travel Rule. Responses are due December 24, and the guide itself would not create new rules.
Crypto businesses preparing for the UK’s expanded regulatory regime have a more detailed picture of the controls the Financial Conduct Authority expects them to build.
The regulator’s October 23 consultation proposes changes to its Financial Crime Guide, covering cryptoassets alongside fraud, sanctions, data security and money laundering. The proposals apply to the FCA’s financial crime supervisory population, including cryptoasset businesses and firms overseen under the Money Laundering Regulations.
The practical focus is on how firms assess customers and transactions, and how they react when risk changes. A blockchain record can help an investigation, but a record alone does not decide whether a customer explanation is credible or a transfer needs further scrutiny.
The consultation paper proposes examples of good and poor practice for enhanced due diligence, onboarding and transaction monitoring. It specifically addresses the use of blockchain analytics and further guidance on the Travel Rule, which concerns information accompanying certain transfers.
The paper also reminds firms that governance must evolve as their businesses grow. Its proposed changes include a question about whether policies and staff training distinguish obligations under proceeds-of-crime legislation from those under terrorism legislation.
For an exchange or provider of custody, the implication is that buying a screening product is only one part of the job. Someone still has to set its thresholds, review alerts and document decisions. A technically accurate warning is of limited use if it sits unreviewed while funds move elsewhere.
That matters for stablecoin transfers as much as for volatile tokens. A stable unit price does not establish the identity of a sender or the origin of funds. Transaction risk and market risk are different questions, and control systems need to reflect that distinction.
The FCA says the guide contains no rules and imposes no new requirements. It is intended to help firms understand supervisory expectations and assess their own arrangements. The consultation closes on December 24, after which the regulator plans to publish feedback and the final text in a policy statement.
Separately, the FCA’s regime overview says the wider cryptoasset framework is expected to begin on October 25, 2027. Applications for authorization are already open, and the regulator published a package of final rules in June.
The distinction between those stages matters for firms planning investment in compliance. This consultation does not postpone existing anti-money-laundering duties until next year, nor does it bring the whole future regime into force immediately. It fills in the proposed guidance firms can use when translating their obligations into day-to-day decisions.
Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
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The post How to Grow and Care for Yucca Plants appeared first on Gardener's Path.
TL;DR: Tether says it led Peso’s pre-seed round to expand USDT payment infrastructure in Latin America. The announcement emphasizes local bank connections and merchant payments, without disclosing the investment amount.
Tether’s latest investment is aimed at the point where a dollar token becomes useful for buying lunch, paying a merchant or moving money into a local bank account.
The USDT issuer announced on October 21 that it led a pre-seed funding round in Peso, a Bolivian financial-technology company. Financial terms were not disclosed in the announcement.
Peso’s products include USDT accounts, point-of-sale acceptance and virtual accounts connecting to Bolivia’s banking system through QR and ACH payment arrangements, according to Tether. The company also describes an integration enabling food orders paid in USDT through Yango in Bolivia.
Funding is intended to expand local on- and off-ramps in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Argentina, as well as merchant and account infrastructure.
Moving a stablecoin between blockchain addresses is only one part of a usable payment service. A customer may earn local currency, hold a dollar balance and pay a business that wants its proceeds in a bank account.
Connecting those steps determines whether the token works as spending money or remains an asset the customer must repeatedly convert and transfer. It also determines where costs appear: a cheap blockchain transaction does not guarantee an inexpensive conversion or withdrawal.
The announcement puts Peso’s local connections at the center of the investment case. That is a more specific proposition than simply adding another wallet capable of holding USDT.
However, product availability and commercial adoption are different measures. The funding release does not establish how frequently customers use the described services, how much merchants process through them or the all-in cost of a typical payment.
Those operating figures would show whether the investment is translating into routine spending. For now, Tether has disclosed a commitment to a payments provider and identified the infrastructure it wants that provider to expand.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
Bitcoin Magazine
Central Bank of Ireland Fines Coinbase Unit €3.25 Million Over Customer Fund Safeguarding Failures
The Central Bank of Ireland has fined Coinbase Ireland Limited €3.25 million ($3.65 million) for failing to safeguard customer funds and for leaning on its US parent to run compliance functions it was supposed to control itself.
The regulator announced the penalty on Thursday, one day after it reached a settlement with the Coinbase subsidiary.
The breaches ran from November 2020 to August 2025 under Ireland’s Electronic Money Regulations. Coinbase Ireland, an e-money institution, issues the euro and dollar balances European customers use to buy bitcoin and other crypto assets on the Coinbase platform.
The law requires those balances to sit in dedicated safeguarding accounts, walled off from corporate money and from customers of other Coinbase entities.
The Central Bank found three failures. Coinbase Ireland placed “excessive reliance” on its US-based group to design and run its safeguarding controls, and it lacked the local expertise to oversee that work.
Its safeguarding account was underfunded “for lengthy periods of time” because of poor system design and weak control testing. And it had no adequate process to flag material changes in its safeguarding practices to the regulator.
That last point drew the sharpest language from Karen O’Leary, the Central Bank’s director of enforcement. The regulator said the exchange Ireland promised “robust and automated safeguards” when it sought authorisation in 2019, and that the firm’s practices drifted from those commitments without notice.
“Failing to adhere to the assurances made during the authorisation process or to inform us of material changes as happened in this case is completely unacceptable,” O’Leary said. “Payment and e-money firms have a fundamental obligation to fully safeguard customers’ funds. The Central Bank has made its supervisory expectations in this regard clear: we have no tolerance for weaknesses in safeguarding arrangements.”
The Central Bank set the base penalty at €4.65 million and applied a 30% discount for settling. The fine and a reprimand await confirmation from Ireland’s High Court. It is the regulator’s 164th enforcement outcome, bringing its lifetime fines past €432 million.
In a blog post, Coinbase said it self-reported “many of the items described in the settlement” in January 2024 and fixed most of the underlying control issues that same year. The company stressed that no customer lost money or lost access to funds.
Coinbase laid out five problem areas. During the March 2023 US banking crisis, as Silvergate Bank neared collapse, Coinbase Ireland directed 30 customers to deposit dollars into a Coinbase, Inc. account at another US bank, mixing their funds with those of a separate Coinbase entity.
After Brexit forced the migration of European customers from the company’s UK affiliate, some kept sending deposits to the old UK accounts. Euro withdrawals for US and UK customers of other Coinbase units were at times paid out of the Irish safeguarding account for liquidity reasons, the exchange said.
Coding errors in an internal dashboard left the safeguarding account underfunded by an average of roughly 0.54% of its total obligation through 2023 and the first half of 2024. And the firm did not tell the Central Bank about changes to its practices.
A daily “Treasury Rebalancing Process” moved funds back into the correct account each day, the exchange said, but that did not prevent the initial commingling.
“These issues largely arose in the context of Coinbase taking steps to protect customers during periods of significant disruption,” a company spokesperson told Reuters.
The exchange said it has since redesigned its safeguarding calculation, passed two third-party validations with no open findings, posted a €25 million guaranty bond and hired a dedicated head of safeguarding.
The penalty follows a €21.5 million fine the Central Bank imposed on Coinbase Europe in November 2025 for failing to monitor more than 30 million transactions for money laundering and terrorist financing risk.
That unit’s Irish registration lapsed at the end of 2025 as the exchange shifted its European headquarters to Luxembourg under a MiCA license from the country’s financial regulator.
Coinbase is the largest US crypto exchange and the world’s biggest custodian of bitcoin, holding coins on behalf of most US spot bitcoin ETFs.
This post Central Bank of Ireland Fines Coinbase Unit €3.25 Million Over Customer Fund Safeguarding Failures first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
The private keys associated with eight certificates were compromised, and root programs and trust stores are blocking them.
The post Browsers Block eMudhra Intermediate CAs Over Recoverable Private Keys appeared first on SecurityWeek.
The European Banking Authority has designated USDC as the EU’s first significant e-money token under MiCA, setting up an additional layer of supervision for Circle’s euro-area issuing entity.
TL;DR: The classification was announced on October 14. From November 12, the EBA takes direct responsibility for specified prudential areas of USDC supervision, while French regulators retain other oversight functions.
Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS issues the token within the bloc. The EBA said 45 e-money tokens had been notified under MiCA and that USDC was the first to cross the threshold for significant classification. It is a milestone in the operation of Europe’s crypto rulebook rather than a new stablecoin launch.
The supervisory division is more nuanced than one agency taking over everything. The EBA will assume responsibilities covering own funds, reserves, liquidity and recovery or redemption planning. France’s ACPR will continue overseeing matters including governance, outsourcing and the suitability of key personnel.
That matters because stablecoin risk is not confined to whether a dollar token tracks its peg on a quiet trading day. Redemption pressure, the liquidity of backing assets and operational failures can become important when demand for withdrawals surges. Significant-token designation puts extra scrutiny on those areas.
For European banks and payment companies evaluating USDC, a clearer line of supervision may help with due diligence. It does not remove market, custody or operational risk, and it should not be taken as a guarantee of redemption under every conceivable scenario. MiCA is meant to establish a framework for managing such risks, not make them disappear.
Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
The arrest count is striking, but the scale of the online infrastructure removed may be the bigger story. An international effort against West African scam networks has resulted in 28 arrests, while technology companies say they removed more than 3.7 million accounts, pages and groups linked to fraudulent activity.
TL;DR: The US Justice Department says its October crackdown led to 28 arrests in Ghana and Nigeria. Binance and Coinbase were among the industry participants, and partners identified more than $11 million in potentially freezable funds, not confirmed recoveries.
The operation, called Joint Disruption Week, brought investigators together at the UK’s National Crime Agency in London during the week beginning October 6. Authorities targeted networks accused of investment fraud, impersonation and other online schemes that reach victims well beyond West Africa.
According to the Justice Department’s October 13 announcement, Ghanaian authorities arrested 19 people and seized 303 electronic devices in an operation near Accra. Nine more arrests were reported in Nigeria. Investigators also identified 117 trafficking victims in Ghana, a reminder that scam-centre operations can involve people held against their will as well as the victims losing money online.
Binance and Coinbase joined companies including Chainalysis, Elliptic, Meta, Google and Microsoft in sharing intelligence or disrupting the infrastructure used by scammers. That collaboration can help investigators connect social-media accounts, payments and wallet activity, but it should not be confused with proof that every suspect used cryptocurrency.
There is also an important distinction in the money figure. Officials said private-sector partners identified more than $11 million in funds that could potentially be frozen. They did not say that $11 million had been seized or returned to victims.
The real test now is how much of the identified money authorities can actually secure and how many disrupted operations stay offline.
Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
TL;DR: French lawmakers approved an amendment to the 2027 budget by 38 votes to 37 that would change how gains are taxed when cryptocurrencies are converted into stablecoins. The proposal is not yet final law.
For French crypto investors, moving from Bitcoin into a stablecoin could become a taxable event before any euros reach a bank account.
The National Assembly has narrowly adopted an amendment to the 2027 budget that seeks to remove the existing tax deferral on crypto-to-stablecoin conversions. The vote was 38 in favor and 37 against, with 25 abstentions. Nicolas Sansu, who introduced Amendment No. 3898, argued that switching from a volatile cryptoasset into a fiat-linked stablecoin should not receive different treatment from cashing out into ordinary currency.
The distinction has mattered to active traders. Under the existing framework described in the parliamentary debate, an exchange of one cryptoasset for another generally does not immediately crystallize the same capital-gains liability as conversion into fiat or spending proceeds on goods.
Stablecoins complicate that framework because they are themselves cryptoassets but are designed to track the value of currencies such as the euro or dollar. The proposal would narrow the tax advantage of using them as a temporary place to park gains.
There is a substantial caveat: an adopted amendment is not the same thing as an enacted tax law. The budget process still has parliamentary stages to clear, and the eventual wording could change before the legislation takes effect.
For now, French holders have a policy proposal to watch, not an instruction to recalculate past tax returns. The vote shows how closely lawmakers are looking at the line between crypto trading and a taxable cash-out.
The British Army is looking for new ways to power its troops in the field, offering £2.45 million ($3.26 million) to companies that can develop better batteries, faster chargers and quieter alternatives to the diesel generators units rely on today. UK Defence Innovation, the Ministry of Defence’s innovation arm, launched the Tactical Power Challenge on […]— Brinc Drones, the Seattle-based maker of 911 response drones, has named Joe Levy chief revenue officer. Levy joins from Peregrine, a public safety data platform, and early in his career was a drill sergeant and combat engineer for the U.S. Army Reserve.
Levy praised the Brinc team, saying, “They’re passionate about what they do with a vision that will change the public safety landscape. I’m grateful to join them and help scale what they’ve built.”
Brinc announced a $125 million funding round in July, bringing its total raised to more than $280 million. The startup is hiring for numerous roles and is No. 6 on the GeekWire 200, a ranked index of the Pacific Northwest’s top startups.
— Seattle-based Fred Hutch Cancer Center has appointed Jessie Minton vice president and chief digital and information officer, a new position that brings the roles together.
Former Chief Data Officer Jeff Leek stepped down and is now a professor in the Fred Hutch Public Health Sciences Division and CEO of Synthesize Bio, a startup he co-founded in 2023. Last month, Fred Hutch announced Shawn Stapleton as VP and chief AI and innovation officer, another new role.
Minton joins from Washington University in St. Louis where she has been vice chancellor for technology and chief information officer since 2022. She was previously VP and CIO at the University of Oregon.
Fred Hutch praised Minton’s track record “of modernizing complex technology organizations, strengthening cybersecurity, governing large-scale Epic environments and aligning technology strategy with clinical, research and academic priorities.” The new role is effective Dec. 7.
— Jason (JJ) James has been named chief information officer of Acumatica, the Bellevue, Wash.-based enterprise software giant that was acquired last year by Vista Equity Partners. James has more than 25 years in technology leadership and was previously CIO at companies including Aptos Retail, Net Health and Optima Healthcare Solutions.
“My focus is putting AI to work across Acumatica while keeping security at the core, so we can move fast without compromising the trust our expanding community of customers, partners and developers places in us,” James said in a statement.
— Seattle tech leader Andrew Bennett has joined San Francisco-based Motive as chief marketing officer. Bennett was with Smartsheet for a decade, leaving as CMO in 2024. He is also a limited partner with the investment firm Stage 2 Capital.
Motive provides software, hardware and AI-powered tools to help businesses manage physical fleets of vehicles and heavy equipment.
— Steven Chen has left LinkedIn, where he served as director and head of corporate legal and sustainability, to become a senior director at Rubrik.
— Seattle-based LevelTen Energy, a startup facilitating the deployment of clean energy projects, has appointed John Barrow as director of a new initiative enabling the purchase and sale of data center projects under development.
Barrow joins from CyrusOne, a global data center developer and operator, and was with CPS Energy for more than 15 years.
“In my career, I’ve had a front-row seat to the data center boom,” Barrow said. Participants are struggling to quickly secure locations and energy, he said, adding that LevelTen “can solve those problems for industry participants at scale.”
— Certivo, a Seattle startup building technology to automate supply chain compliance, has named Jeffrey Bornstein to its board. Bornstein was with GE for nearly three decades and served in roles including vice chairman and chief financial officer.
“He has run the numbers for some of the most complex industrial supply chains in the world while regulators checked every one of them,” said Certivo CEO Kunal Chopra. Certivo is No. 194 on the GeekWire 200.
— Convera, a Seattle-based fintech company helping businesses transfer money across borders, has added to its leadership team. All four will work out of Convera’s other offices.
— Portable Consultants a Redmond, Wash., enterprise telecommunications and data connectivity provider, has named two leaders.
— Reperio Health, a Portland, Ore., startup bringing preventive health check-ups into the home, has named Brad Nations to its board of directors. Nations is CEO and founder of JB Advisory.
— iQmetrix, a Vancouver, B.C.-based company building point-of-sale and retail management software for cell phone and wireless stores, has appointed Beniamin Longodor as VP of global growth. Longodor, who is based in Austria, was previously with NTS Retail.
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