The draft proposal from South Korea’s ruling party reportedly bars stablecoin interest and calls for technical standards to ensure interoperability across blockchain networks. South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party is reportedly preparing a draft bill that would classify stablecoins as foreign exchange payment instruments and require tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) to be backed by assets held in trust. Citing an integrated draft of the proposed Digital Asset Basic Act, the Seoul Economic Daily reported on Wednesday that stablecoins used in cross-border transactions would be treated as “means of payment” under the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, placing related businesses under oversight even without separate registration. The draft bill would also require issuers of tokenized RWAs to place underlying assets in managed trusts under the Capital Markets Act. Read more
Thailand’s SEC proposes tightening funding rules for cryptocurrency companies to include anyone backing major shareholders, directly or indirectly. Thailand’s securities regulator is seeking to curb money laundering and technology-related crimes by tightening funding rules for cryptocurrency companies. The Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand (Thai SEC) on Monday proposed expanding approval requirements for crypto businesses to include financiers behind major shareholders. Under the proposal, any person providing backing or financial support to major shareholders would itself be treated as a shareholder requiring regulatory approval from the regulator. Read more
A New York Times investigation points to Adam Back as Satoshi Nakamoto, but the Blockstream CEO denies it, and critics say proof is still missing. The New York Times published an investigation on Wednesday arguing that Adam Back, the British cryptographer who invented Hashcash, is the most likely person behind the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym used by Bitcoin’s creator. Back denied the claim, telling Cointelegraph he was referring reporters to his post on X after previously rejecting similar attempts to identify him as Satoshi. Back reiterated in the post that he is not Satoshi, adding that he “was early in laser focus on the positive societal implications of cryptography, online privacy and electronic cash, hence my ~1992 onwards active interest in applied research on ecash, privacy tech on cypherpunks list which led to hashcash and other ideas.” The investigation was conducted by John Carreyrou, a French-American investigative journalist best known for exposing the Theranos fraud. In the report, he claims that...