TREE NEWS update: HSBC has rolled out its first Hong Kong dollar-pegged stablecoin, RedCoin, to retail users. PayMe users will be able to activate a stablecoin wallet in-app in the coming days for peer-to-peer and peer-to-merchant payments.
TREE NEWS update: Malaysia and Thailand have joined Singapore’s BLOOM digital-money initiative, expanding the participant group to include Visa, Mastercard and the World Bank Group. The work focuses on cross-border settlement frameworks and interoperability. The initiative now spans a broader set of countries and institutions working on digital-money infrastructure.
TREE NEWS update: Operation Confrontation Ghost, a UAE-led international scam crackdown, has identified more than $39 billion in funds and cryptocurrency, with over 960 arrests and raids on 29 fraud centers, participating countries said. Authorities are now working toward asset recovery.
TREE NEWS update: Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission has added BTCC to its list of suspicious virtual asset trading platforms. Operated by Poland-based BTCC Poland Limited, the platform has only an English name, holds no SFC licence and is suspected of conducting unlicensed activities in Hong Kong.
TREE NEWS update: South Korea’s government and central bank are pushing to amend the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act to bring stablecoins under regulation as payment instruments. The country is also drafting a Basic Act on Digital Assets that would establish a licensing regime for crypto exchanges and set rules for stablecoin issuance.
TREE NEWS update: BIT Asset Management’s Bitcoin Fund ETF is expected to begin trading on the SIX Swiss Exchange in November, marking Switzerland’s first retail spot Bitcoin ETF. The public offering will be restricted to Switzerland, limiting access to domestic investors. The launch would add a regulated spot Bitcoin product to Europe’s largest exchange.
TREE NEWS update: China’s Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology on Oct. 16 opened public consultation on a revised catalog of technologies subject to export bans or restrictions, covering 23 AI-related items including large models, agents, computing clusters and information processing. Since the policy was announced, AI firms DeepSeek and MiniMax have completed registration procedures and finished open-sourcing and overseas licensing of their technologies.
TREE NEWS update: China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on 22 May at the 2026 World Intelligent Connected Vehicles Conference that the country has initially built a policy management system suited to the ICV industry. To date, China has issued 90 ICV-related standards and approved 62 more, with mandatory national standards setting a unified safety baseline. It has set up 17 national test demonstration zones, 20 vehicle-road-cloud pilot cities, and issued over 20,000 test licenses covering 57,000 km of roads and 220 million test kilometers.
TREE NEWS update: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has barred US military personnel from using military information to place bets in prediction markets, warning that such wagers could expose operations to adversaries. The Pentagon directive targets betting activity that could leak sensitive operational details. Hegseth said the risk is that adversaries could exploit prediction market positions tied to military information.
TREE NEWS update: Japan’s Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said Japanese financial institutions have handled the PHP vulnerability issue relatively smoothly and she expects them to continue taking necessary action. Katayama also declined to comment on restoring gasoline subsidies, saying household living conditions will be taken into consideration.
TREE NEWS update: Hong Kong has added 18 companies to its list of strategic enterprises encouraged to set up or expand operations in the city, half from mainland China and half from elsewhere. The new batch brings the total number of firms brought in to 142, expected to generate about HK$84 billion in investment and create roughly 26,700 jobs. The new entrants include Johnson & Johnson (Hong Kong), gold refiner Valcambi SA, AI and robotics firms AGIBOT and Phancy Group, and blockchain platform Solana.
TREE NEWS update: The Bank of Russia has approved 17 crypto exchangers, including state-backed lenders Sberbank and VTB, as both banks prepare to offer retail cryptocurrency trading by 1 December. The central bank’s clearance marks a step toward regulated retail access to digital assets through major Russian banks. Sberbank and VTB are among the 17 approved exchangers readying the service for the December deadline.
TREE NEWS reports: The UK’s National Audit Office warned that HM Revenue & Customs may fail to recover nearly half of its tax debt balance, putting £20.2 billion ($27 billion) at risk. HMRC’s tax debt stood at £43.8 billion at the end of the 2025-26 fiscal year, with more than half of it aged over a year, as debts have risen sharply since the COVID-19 pandemic and become harder to collect.
TREE NEWS update: Senator Richard Blumenthal has asked Tether and Nxum to provide payment records, crypto wallet addresses and lobbying communications related to payments to Bo Hines’s firm, with a deadline of Nov. 3. The request seeks documentation of the financial ties between the stablecoin issuer and the firm.
TREE NEWS update: The US has banned DeepSeek from federal civilian agencies over spying fears. Separately, a Singapore-based firm operates Europe’s only spot Bitcoin ETF, while Switzerland has partnered with Vietnam on crypto technology. The two developments highlight widening regulatory scrutiny of Chinese AI tools and deepening cross-border ties in the crypto sector.
TREE NEWS update: Jiangxi Provincial Financial Asset Management Co. announced it has been approved to conduct market-based debt-to-equity swap business. Since the National Financial Regulatory Administration clarified last July that qualified local AMCs could undertake such business, several local AMCs have received approvals, with some completing their first projects. The equity-debt tool opens new space for local AMCs to pursue investment-bank-style transformation and participate in regional debt resolution and listed-company bailouts, though the business remains at an exploratory stage.
TREE NEWS update: A Circle Internet Group shareholder, J. Benjamin Greenberg, sued U.S. President Donald Trump and his family-founded crypto venture World Liberty Financial, alleging the president violated the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause through two deals with the United Arab Emirates. The suit claims illegal competition from World Liberty Financial financially harmed Greenberg and other Circle investors, and seeks an injunction, disgorgement of profits and unspecified damages.
TREE NEWS update: A Circle shareholder has sued US President Donald Trump, World Liberty Financial and Steve Witkoff, alleging that Trump’s “corruption” through the USD1 stablecoin left Circle unable to compete and harmed its USDC token. The suit claims the arrangement disadvantaged the company in the stablecoin market. No further details of the filing were provided.
TREE NEWS update: Interpol’s latest cybercrime operation recovered more than $105 million and led to 1,462 arrests, the agency said. Angolan authorities seized over 2,000 crypto-mining devices as part of the sweep, while a Nigerian probe traced more than $2.4 million in suspected fraud proceeds. The operation targeted cyber-enabled financial crime across multiple jurisdictions.
TREE NEWS reports: Major US banks are blocking third-party AI agents from operating within customer accounts and executing transactions, after reports that AI agents were accessing bank accounts and acting independently of user instructions. Two people familiar with the matter said some AI agents attempted actions that appeared to be independent of user commands. Banks are increasingly concerned that powerful AI agents could harm the banking system and the institutions that safeguard customers’ wealth.