Flash News

TREE NEWS update: The People’s Bank of China and the Central Bank of Chile renewed their bilateral local-currency swap agreement, keeping the facility at 500 billion yuan/6 trillion Chilean pesos, the PBOC said. The renewed agreement is valid for five years. The PBOC said the renewal will deepen monetary and financial cooperation, facilitate bilateral trade and investment, and help maintain financial market stability.

TREE NEWS update: Bithumb said an unauthorized breach of its internal mobile office system, DaouOffice, exposed personal information tied to 6,444 customers, of whom 844 had data confirmed leaked while 5,600 remained encrypted and unreadable. The exchange said 715 employees were also affected. Stolen data includes names, phone numbers, emails, resident registration numbers, driver’s license numbers, bank account numbers and ID copies. Bithumb said it will take full responsibility for all confirmed losses and provide support and compensation to affected customers.

TREE NEWS update: China’s National Medical Products Administration approved a new cosmetic ingredient, methoxypropylaminocyclohexenyl ethylideneoxyethyl cyanoacetate, a sunscreen agent, on Tuesday. It is the first sunscreen ingredient approved since the Cosmetics Supervision and Administration Regulation took effect, expanding the country’s supply of UV-filter raw materials to better meet consumers’ diverse sun-protection needs.

TREE NEWS update: Utah state prosecutors have filed criminal charges against Kalshi, alleging an investigator continued placing sports wagers from Utah after federal courts declined to pause the state’s gambling ban. The charges come days after the CFTC sued to stop Utah’s case against the prediction market. The dispute centers on whether Kalshi’s event contracts fall under state gambling law or federal derivatives regulation.

TREE NEWS update: Personal data of more than 40,000 U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees has been publicly exposed, including names, phone numbers, email addresses, job titles and email group affiliations. The data covers staff at ICE, CBP, Homeland Security Investigations and CISA, with some records identifying personnel in special operations, surveillance, computer forensics and undercover work. Some entries match information employees posted on LinkedIn, while others reveal internal DHS structures, programs or operations not previously disclosed.

TREE NEWS update: Westpac will limit customer payments to cryptocurrency exchanges to A$10,000 per month starting in December, with no exemptions or higher limits available. Withdrawals from crypto exchanges into Westpac accounts remain unchanged under the new policy.

TREE NEWS reports: Banks that built their stablecoin business models before MiCA took effect have locked in enterprise payment networks that latecomers will struggle to close, Tiger Research said. Under MiCA, only commercial banks and electronic money institutions may issue e-money tokens, with issuers required to hold 30% of reserves in segregated accounts and grant par-value redemption at any time. Of 45 EMTs notified to EU regulators, USDC is the only one classified as significant, triggering a 60% segregated-reserve requirement and a minimum 3% own-funds threshold.

TREE NEWS update: China’s Ministry of Commerce said the upgraded protocol to the China-Peru free trade agreement will officially take effect on Nov. 1. Ministry spokesperson Huang Ling announced the date at a press conference in Beijing. The protocol amends the existing bilateral trade pact between the two countries.

TREE NEWS update: China’s Foreign Ministry urged the United States to heed international calls and immediately end its blockade and sanctions on Cuba, after the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on October 28 calling for an end to the US economic, commercial and financial embargo. Spokesperson Guo Jiakun said the 64-year embargo has brought deep suffering to the Cuban people, noting the UN has passed such resolutions 34 consecutive times since 1992.

TREE NEWS update: China will take necessary measures to safeguard the rights of its companies after the US banned imports from three Chinese biotech firms over alleged forced labor, Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at an Oct. 29 briefing. Guo said Beijing strongly opposes the move, calling the forced-labor claim a lie fabricated by anti-China elements, and urged Washington to stop using human-rights pretexts to interfere in China’s internal affairs.

TREE NEWS update: China’s Commerce Ministry spokesperson Huang Ling said on the 29th that any discriminatory restrictions by the EU on Chinese products would prompt Beijing to take all necessary measures. Responding to reports that the EU is studying extending the China-EU trade understanding on hybrid vehicles to chemicals and other sectors, Huang said artificial limits on normal trade violate WTO rules and would raise costs for downstream industries and EU inflation.

TREE NEWS update: BlackRock’s iShares Trust filed Form 485APOS for the iShares Bitcoin Managed Protection ETF, ticker PBIT, a 1940 Act buffer fund that holds no bitcoin or bitcoin ETPs and instead uses IBIT as reference asset via FLEX call spreads plus short-duration fixed income. Each option tranche carries an initial maximum loss of about 10%, with upside capped at the sold call’s strike. The fund is targeted for a January 2027 launch; exchange, listing date, management fee and total expense ratio are not yet disclosed.

TREE NEWS update: Russia’s crypto investor testing standards for regulated platforms are complete, with the draft submitted last week to the Bank of Russia’s base standards committee, NAUFOR first vice-president Ekaterina Andreeva said at Crypto Summit 2026. Brokers are expected to begin testing clients as early as late November. Test results will be valid across all regulated platforms, with a unified question bank and process for all licensed institutions.

TREE NEWS update: Utah Attorney General Derek Brown filed criminal charges against prediction market Kalshi and its executives Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, alleging they promoted online gambling. The charges target the company and both named individuals over its operations in the state.

TREE NEWS update: Beijing’s Haidian District Market Supervision Administration has fined a technology company 930,000 yuan in the Chinese capital’s first case of assisting a pyramid scheme using blockchain and virtual currency technology. The company, an outsourcing service provider for a public chain, continued to supply technical operations, marketing and exchange access even though it should have known the chain hosted pyramid-scheme applications. The chain ran recruitment-reward programs that paid based on the number of people recruited.

TREE NEWS update: A technology company acting as an outsourced service provider for a public blockchain was fined and had assets confiscated totaling more than 930,000 yuan ($130,000) by the Haidian District Market Supervision Administration in Beijing for providing conveniences to pyramid scheme activities, in the city’s first such case involving blockchain and virtual currency. The blockchain’s “Atomic Plan” and “Hathaway Plan” were pyramid schemes centered on recruitment-based rebates, and public security authorities have criminally detained the organizers.

TREE NEWS update: Gate US has enabled trading with USD balances and launched USD Wire deposit and withdrawal services, letting users hold dollars in their accounts without converting to stablecoins. Verified users in eligible regions can move large sums via their own US bank accounts using a dedicated reference code, with limits above standard card or in-app transfers. The exchange holds 37 state money transmitter licenses and serves 47 states and territories, though the service is unavailable in Colorado, Hawaii, Missouri, New Jersey, Utah and Wyoming.

TREE NEWS update: The US Department of Homeland Security on October 28 US Eastern Time added three Chinese entities to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act entity list, prompting a response from China’s Ministry of Commerce spokesperson. The spokesperson took questions on the move, which Beijing is responding to publicly. No further details on the entities or the response were provided.

TREE NEWS update: BGI Group said on July 29 that it “firmly rejects all allegations” after the US government added three BGI entities to its Xinjiang-related import restriction list. The company denied any involvement in forced labor and said the listing will not have a material impact on its business, with R&D, production and commercial cooperation continuing as normal in China and other countries and regions.