Flash News

TREE NEWS update: China’s Supreme People’s Court, Supreme People’s Procuratorate and Ministry of Public Security jointly issued an opinion on applying law in criminal cases involving fentanyl-related substances, document No. Fa Fa [2026] 12. The guidance, issued under the Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law, calls for strict punishment of fentanyl-related crimes and distinguishes medicinal from non-medicinal uses of such substances.

TREE NEWS update: The CFTC issued a warning over risky prediction market ‘mention’ contracts, weeks after fining a former White House teleprompter operator who made more than $107,000 trading prediction contracts tied to President Trump’s speeches. The regulator flagged the contracts as a compliance concern for traders.

TREE NEWS reports: The Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing stock exchanges have triggered 69 intraday trading halts on 51 newly listed stocks so far this year, Securities Daily reported. The halts are more than a risk-control tool, the report said, serving as a market-wide warning that pushes all participants to fulfill their responsibilities. Regulators should keep the mechanism active and target abnormal volatility, short-term speculation and coordinated price manipulation in the early trading days after listings.

TREE NEWS reports: People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng said in a signed article that the central bank will strengthen coordination with industrial policy and guide financial institutions to assess risks scientifically, applying differentiated measures with support for some sectors and controls on others to curb “involution-style” competition in certain industries. Experts say the logic of financial resource allocation is shifting away from credit that fuels crude capacity expansion toward serving supply optimization, technological upgrading and the orderly exit of outdated capacity, with the credit structure expected to improve further during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

TREE NEWS update: DeepSeek will address the UN Security Council on AI risks this week, sharing the stage with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Amodei has spent the past year calling China’s government the biggest threat to the AI industry. The session puts the Chinese AI developer and the US safety-focused lab chief before the same Security Council audience.

TREE NEWS update: The CFTC is warning that prediction-market contracts tied to whether someone will “mention” specific words carry heightened manipulation risk. The agency flagged the betting category as vulnerable to attempts to influence the outcome. No enforcement action or rule change was announced.

TREE NEWS update: Turkish authorities have arrested Emre Tezmen, chairman of the board of asset management firm Tera. No further details on the charges or the circumstances of the arrest were immediately disclosed.

TREE NEWS update: Utah Republican Senator John Curtis sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking member Dick Durbin urging an investigation into whether Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden used family ties to the presidency for private gain, and requesting subpoenas for both. Curtis cited Trump Jr.’s promotion of family-backed crypto ventures, a prediction-market advisory role at a CFTC-regulated firm, and a wedding gift from Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev, which Donald Trump said his son returned. The call comes a week after Senate Republicans failed to win enough Democratic support to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.

TREE NEWS update: A Republican senator is calling for an investigation into the crypto ventures of US presidents’ sons, citing their ties to the presidency. The request marks a shift, as Democrats had previously led calls to examine the Trump family’s crypto dealings. The senator did not specify which individuals or ventures would be covered by the proposed inquiry.

TREE NEWS reports: White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt and Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Luke Pettit said they are skeptical the Clarity Act can advance before the end of the year, with the current focus on progress at financial regulators. The two said whether crypto legislation can regain momentum during the post-election lame-duck session will depend on the election results.

TREE NEWS update: The SEC has advanced its crypto asset custody rule, sending the proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review, according to the agency’s crypto working group chief legal counsel Taylor Lindman. The rule would clarify that broker-dealers holding non-security crypto assets need no special registration and would let investment advisers place client assets with state-chartered trusts. After review, the SEC will formally propose the rule and seek public comment.

TREE NEWS update: The Federal Reserve Board announced approval of an application by BancFirst Corporation. The approval clears the way for the Oklahoma-based bank holding company to proceed with the transaction it sought. The Fed’s notice did not disclose further terms or conditions of the application.

TREE NEWS update: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he agrees with AI company CEOs that the industry needs regulation. Carney made the remark without specifying which executives or rules he was referring to. The comment signals the Canadian government’s openness to oversight of artificial intelligence.

TREE NEWS update: Andreessen Horowitz and the DeFi Education Fund have submitted a joint proposal to SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce seeking a safe harbor that would create a rebuttable presumption that decentralized exchange protocols and their front-ends are not exchanges under the Exchange Act. a16z filed a second letter the same day asking the SEC to build a related framework.

TREE NEWS update: The European System of Central Banks has told the European Commission that MiCA’s ban on interest on stablecoins should be extended to products the regulation does not currently cover, including lending and staking. The ESCB, which groups the ECB and national central banks, wants the yield prohibition to follow stablecoins into those adjacent activities.

TREE NEWS update: The SEC censured New York-based broker-dealer OTC Link LLC and ordered it to pay a $575,000 civil penalty for longstanding violations of Regulation Systems Compliance and Integrity. The action, announced in a settled order, marks another enforcement step tied to the agency’s Regulation SCI framework for market technology infrastructure.

TREE NEWS update: China’s National Immigration Administration said on Sept. 22 that it will roll out more immigration and exit-entry facilitation policies to serve advanced manufacturing, following a party group meeting in Beijing. The measures target enterprises’ talent needs, plus faster port visas, transit visa-free and regional entry visa-free policies, and expanded smart and expedited customs clearance.