Pencil Finance said that its first-of-a-kind loan offered financing to 6,600 students in Southeast Asia who were underserved by traditional lenders. Student loan real-world asset (RWA) protocol Pencil Finance completed a $1 million onchain student loan cycle, offering financing to thousands of students in Southeast Asia who were underserved by traditional lenders. Pencil said it completed its first fully onchain student loan cycle on the blockchain, where the platform deployed $1 million in capital as a lender that was repaid by borrowers to the bundle’s funders with yield, the company revealed in a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph. The bundle was funded in July 2025 by Animoca Brands, Open Campus and New Campus, structured as a senior tranche with fixed returns and a junior tranche with variable returns and first-loss risk. Read more
Standard Chartered said it is the first major global bank to offer institutional access to spot Bitcoin and Ether trading in the UAE region. London-headquartered multinational bank Standard Chartered has launched spot Bitcoin and Ether trading for institutional clients in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), through its entity regulated by the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). The move makes Standard Chartered the first global bank to offer institutional digital asset trading in the region and the first Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB) with a similar offering, the bank said in a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph. Eligible institutional clients will be able to access spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) trading through Standard Chartered’s electronic trading channels integrated into the bank’s existing platforms. Read more
The third-wave Coldcard exploiter moved about 10% of stolen funds through THORChain as researchers traced the assets to a new Ethereum address. A hacker linked to the third wave of Coldcard wallet thefts has started swapping stolen Bitcoin for Ether through THORChain. Galaxy head of research Alex Thorn took to X on Wednesday to report that the third-wave exploiter moved about 10% of the stolen funds, with 90% remaining untouched. Thorn said it marked the first time funds from any of the three waves had moved onchain from the original hacker addresses. “The hacker appears to be having some issues swapping all the funds through THORChain — they keep getting refunded and he keeps retrying,” he said. Read more