Son Min

Changpeng Zhao (CZ), co-founder of Binance, denied the local president's remark that he proposed establishing a 'private bank handling cryptocurrency' in Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. According to CoinDesk on the 3rd (local time), Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Japarov said in an interview with local media that "Changpeng Zhao visited Kyrgyzstan last May and proposed establishing a private bank that deals with virtual assets." President Japarov added, "I wanted to establish a state-owned bank, but CZ refused, so we agreed to establish the private bank 'Bereket Bank' (Bereket Bank)." However, Zhao rebutted the next day on X (formerly Twitter), saying, "That is not true. It's not complete falsehood (FUD), but a wrong claim," and "I have never directly proposed setting up a bank, and I am not interested in running a bank." He added that he may have said something to the effect that it would be good to have more digital banks that support cryptocurrencies. He emphasized, "I have never heard the name of the bank mentioned in the reports," and said that the establishment of Kyrgyzstan's 'Bereket Bank' is unrelated to him. Meanwhile, Changpeng Zhao is currently serving as a blockchain and virtual asset regulatory advisor to the Kyrgyzstan government. In April, he signed a memorandum of understanding with the Kyrgyzstan Foreign Investment Agency and took on advising on national-level cryptocurrency policy.

U.S. President Donald Trump once again claimed in a CBS News interview that he "doesn't know who" Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) is. Trump pardoned Zhao last October, but this remark has reignited controversy. According to CoinDesk on the 3rd (local time), President Trump said in an interview with CBS anchor Nora O'Donnell that "Zhao was treated very unfairly by the Biden administration" and called him "a victim of the government's political weaponization." He added, "I don't even know who he is. I don't think I've met him. Maybe someone shook his hand, but I don't remember," and "I've heard he's a victim, like me and many others." Trump granted a presidential pardon to Zhao last October, roughly a year after Zhao completed a four-month sentence for violating the Bank Secrecy Act. At the time, the White House described it as "a measure to maintain the competitiveness of the United States' cryptocurrency industry." In the CBS interview, Trump said, "This pardon was a decision to keep the U.S. number one in the cryptocurrency field," dismissing allegations of a conflict of interest. He said, "It is true that my sons are involved in the cryptocurrency business, but they have nothing to do with government affairs." However, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren criticized the pardon as "an outright case of cronyism," claiming that Zhao provided financial support to businesses linked to the Trump family. Zhao's legal representative told the New York Post that "Senator Warren's remarks are clear falsehoods and defamatory," and said they are considering legal action.

Over the past 24 hours, the liquidation volume of positions in the crypto assets (cryptocurrencies) perpetual futures market was recorded at 471.15 million dollars. On the 3rd (local time), CoinGlass data showed that a total of 471.15 million dollars worth of futures positions were liquidated in the crypto asset market over the past 24 hours. Specifically, long positions totaling 412.21 million dollars were liquidated, and short positions totaling 58.94 million dollars were liquidated. The largest liquidations were recorded for Ethereum (ETH). Ethereum saw 110.79 million dollars in position liquidations over 24 hours, of which long and short positions of 97.86 million dollars and 12.93 million dollars respectively were liquidated. Bitcoin (BTC) saw 96.36 million dollars in liquidations in the same period, of which long positions accounted for 89.39 million dollars and short positions 6.96 million dollars.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission said it is not considering a plan to designate domestic virtual asset (cryptocurrency) exchange operators Dunamu and Bithumb as financial conglomerates. On the 3rd (local time), the Korea Fair Trade Commission said in a press release, "The research project currently underway is intended to ascertain the domestic and international regulatory status related to corporate groups whose main business is the virtual asset industry," and added, "Policy directions such as regulatory tightening have not been decided yet." Earlier, some media outlets reported, "The Fair Trade Commission is scheduled to start a research project analyzing the regulatory status related to corporate groups mainly engaged in the cryptocurrency business," and reported that "it could designate Dunamu or Bithumb as financial conglomerates and apply financial regulations such as strengthened internal controls, prudential regulation, and reporting and disclosure obligations."

Global virtual asset (cryptocurrency) exchange Binance is listing Intuition (TRUST) perpetual futures. On the 3rd (local time), Binance said through its official website, "It will list the TRUST/USDT perpetual futures at 18:30 on the 5th." It supports up to 50x leverage.

Kim Yong-beom "Investment fact sheet also included" Final agreement after about three months? The presidential office policy chief said on the 31st, "The tariff negotiations memorandum of understanding (MOU) and the 'joint fact sheet' on tariff negotiations and investment and trade (a basic document summarizing the facts of the agreement) have been almost finalized between Korea and the U.S. authorities." Policy Chief Kim said at a briefing held that day at the international media center for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit in Gyeongju, when asked when the fact sheet related to the Korea–U.S. tariff negotiations would be released, "It will come out soon." Producing the fact sheet means that the Korea–U.S. tariff negotiations, which had been a tense tug-of-war since the end of July, will be finally settled after about three months. In a broadcast interview that day, Kim said, "The MOU is quite long, about 25~30 pages," and "I recall the fact sheet being about 3 pages." He added, "(During the wording coordination process) we're tense watching until the end for fear it might change. The wording has been almost agreed on." Regarding U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick's comment the day after the Korea–U.S. summit that "semiconductors were not included in this agreement and Korea decided to open the (agricultural) market 100%," Kim said, "What matters are the specific expressions contained in the MOU or the joint fact sheet." He indicated that the fact sheet will contain the specifics our side asserts. He added, "If possible, the current goal is to announce investment, trade, and security together." Korea and the U.S. are conducting final negotiations over wording and other matters to draft the security negotiation fact sheet. Gyeongju=Reporter Kim Hyung-kyu khk@hankyung.com

Banks around the world are increasingly likely to take a more flexible stance toward virtual assets (cryptocurrencies). On the 31st (local time), Bloomberg reported that the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) plans to revise the banks' crypto-asset exposure rules established in 2022. The committee's review is driven by the recently rapidly growing stablecoin market. In particular, in the United States, the recent passage of the Genius Act allowing the payment use of stablecoins has created a need to establish a new regulatory framework, analysts say. Under current Basel rules, stablecoins issued on public blockchains are subject to the same level of capital requirements as high-risk assets such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. Market participants have criticized this as unreasonable, saying, "Regulated stablecoins with clear asset backing carry much lower risk." The Basel Committee is a key international body that sets global banking regulatory standards, establishing capital adequacy, risk management, and supervisory standards. Regulations such as Basel III aim to strengthen the stability and resilience of the global banking system.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) decrypted a virtual asset (cryptocurrency) wallet and seized AUD 9 million (about US$5.9 million). According to Cointelegraph on the 15th (local time), the AFP decrypted a virtual asset wallet linked to crime and seized AUD 9 million. Krissy Barrett (AFP commissioner) described the action as "a miraculous achievement." The AFP obtained a password-locked note and a random-number image file during an investigation of organized crime suspects. The digital forensics team determined that the image consisted of six groups of numbers and about 50 combinations and was related to the seed phrase of the encrypted wallet. The suspect refused to provide the wallet key, and under Australian law refusing to provide access to an encrypted wallet can result in up to 10 years in prison. Barrett said, "If they had not been able to open the wallet, the suspect would have retained millions of dollars after release," adding, "Such an outcome is unacceptable." The AFP digital forensics team had previously recovered about US$3 million worth of cryptocurrency. Both cases were handled by the AFP-led 'Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce', and seized assets are assigned to the Commonwealth account after a court order. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke will then redistribute them as crime prevention funding.

U.S. virtual asset (cryptocurrency) exchange Coinbase rebutted Democratic Senator Chris Murphy's allegation of 'favored treatment by the Trump administration' as "ludicrous claims." On the 31st (local time), The Block reported that Senator Murphy claimed Coinbase's political donations and corporate sponsorships are linked to President Donald Trump's political corruption structure. He suggested that political influence may have played a role in the SEC's withdrawal of a lawsuit against Coinbase earlier this year. Murphy said, "Coinbase donated $46 million in campaign funds and sponsored Trump's inauguration and the construction of the White House ballroom," and added, "all of this is part of Trump's factory of corruption." Democratic senators are demanding disclosure of the funding sources for Trump's $300 million ballroom project. In response, Coinbase's head of policy Paiyar Shirzad called the allegations "completely baseless," and argued that the political funding committee 'Fairshake' is a bipartisan organization that has also supported three of Senator Murphy's Democratic colleagues. He added that "inauguration donations have been customarily made across the Obama, Biden, and Trump administrations." Shirzad explained that Coinbase's donation to the White House ballroom was also part of a public-private partnership through The Trust for the National Mall, "a project involving major companies from various industries." Regarding the SEC lawsuit, he said, "The lawsuit led by the former SEC commissioner was a classic case of abuse of power," and emphasized that "the current SEC's decision to withdraw it was a legally correct judgment." He said, "You may simply dislike our industry," but added, "we are working to ensure the U.S. financial system can be at the forefront of innovation."

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former founder of FTX, claimed that "FTX and Alameda Research were never insolvent and could have fully repaid customer assets immediately after the 2022 liquidity crisis. On the 31st (local time), according to The Block, Bankman-Fried released a 15-page document stating that "FTX held $25 billion in assets and $16 billion in equity at the time of the November 2022 crisis and could easily have handled withdrawal demands of about $8 billion." He added, "FTX's crisis was a short-term liquidity shortage, not insolvency," and "the situation would have been resolved within a month, but outside legal advisers took control of the company and made things worse." In the document, he criticized John J. Ray III, FTX's new CEO, and the bankruptcy attorneys for driving the company into unnecessary bankruptcy proceedings. He also said the legal team "packaged the company as a 'hopeless pile of garbage' for their own benefit and undervalued the assets." Bankman-Fried said that $1 billion was paid in advisory fees during the bankruptcy process, FTX Token (FTT) worth $7 billion was invalidated, and assets were sold at prices below market value. He said, "If the assets and the FTX stake held by Alameda had been preserved, the current value would be about $136 billion." The FTX bankruptcy estate has not issued a separate statement regarding the claim to date.

Standard Chartered Bank projected that the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market will grow to $2 trillion by 2028. This would represent an expansion of more than 56 times from the current level of about $35 billion. According to The Block on the 30th (local time), Standard Chartered said in a report, "Stablecoins have activated on-chain liquidity and borrowing and lending activity, laying the groundwork for moving real-world assets onto blockchains," and "The tokenization market will reach $2 trillion by 2028." It went on to explain, "Decentralized finance (DeFi) has actually begun to shake up traditional finance," and "If tokenized assets are traded on decentralized exchanges (DEXs), they could potentially replace existing securities exchanges." It added that lending and real-asset trading would be major growth areas for DeFi. It also expected Ethereum (ETH) to be a major beneficiary. The report said, "The majority of tokenization market activity will take place on Ethereum," adding, "Ethereum's reliability has been proven, having operated for more than 10 years without major incidents."

The global money transfer company Western Union (Western Union) filed the 'WUUSD' trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), showing moves to expand virtual asset (cryptocurrency) services. This application came one day after the company announced it would launch a Solana (SOL)-based stablecoin system in the first half of next year. On the 29th (local time), according to Cointelegraph, Western Union filed the 'WUUSD' trademark with the USPTO and said it plans to use it for a wide range of digital asset services such as virtual asset (cryptocurrency) wallets, trading, payments, and lending. The trademark application is currently at the filing stage, and an examiner has not yet been assigned. The application included items such as 'stablecoin payment processing', 'cryptocurrency trading and exchange services', and 'cryptocurrency wallet software'. It also mentioned the possibility of entering financial innovation areas beyond its existing remittance business, including "software to spend and trade cryptocurrencies" and "cryptocurrency lending and derivative exchange services." Western Union earlier disclosed its stablecoin plans on October 23 at an investor conference call, and said the token is scheduled to launch on the Solana blockchain in the first half of 2026.

The virtual asset (cryptocurrency) Fear and Greed Index fell by 5 points compared to the previous day, showing a contraction in investor sentiment. The Fear and Greed Index is a market sentiment indicator where values near 0 indicate extreme fear and values near 100 indicate extreme greed. On the 31st (local time), the Fear and Greed Index provided by virtual asset analytics firm Alternative is currently 29 out of 100, maintaining the 'Fear' phase. The index fell 5 points from the previous day (34 points), showing a slight decline in market mood. The Fear and Greed Index is calculated based on volatility (25%), trading volume (25%), social media (15%), surveys (15%), Bitcoin market cap dominance (10%), and Google search volume (10%).

Global payments company Visa is embarking on a full-scale effort to expand its virtual asset (cryptocurrency)-based payment network. According to Cointelegraph on the 29th (local time), Ryan McInerney, Visa CEO, said on the Q4 earnings conference call, "Visa will support four additional stablecoins that run on four unique blockchains," and added, "These stablecoins are issued based on two fiat currencies and can be converted into more than 25 traditional currencies." Visa already supports USDC, EURC, PayPal USD (PYUSD) based on the Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), and Avalanche (AVAX) networks. With this additional support, Visa is expected to further expand the scope of stablecoin payments within its payment network. McInerney said, "There is a clear growth trend in the stablecoin sector," and added, "Since 2020, the volume of virtual asset and stablecoin payments processed by Visa has reached $140 billion." He went on to say, "Global consumer spending on payment cards linked to stablecoins has increased more than fourfold year-over-year." Since last September, Visa has been experimenting with prepaid cross-border transfers using USDC and EURC through the "Visa Direct" pilot program. It is also preparing measures to allow banks and financial institutions to issue and burn their own stablecoins through the Visa platform.

South Korea and the United States have reportedly reached a final agreement on the detailed terms of tariff negotiations. On the 29th (local time), the Presidential Office said in a briefing, "Today the two countries reached a final agreement on the detailed terms of the tariff negotiations." According to the Presidential Office, the two countries agreed to maintain reciprocal tariffs at the 15% level today and to reduce tariffs on automobiles and parts to 15%. Semiconductor tariffs will be adjusted to a level that is not disadvantageous compared to Taiwan, and most-favored-nation treatment will be applied to some items such as pharmaceuticals and timber. Aircraft parts and some pharmaceuticals are expected to be switched to tariff-free status. Also, under the principle of 'Commercial Rationality (Commercial Rationality)', a mechanism for recovering principal on U.S. investments will be specified in the memorandum of understanding (MOU). In the investment cooperation sector, an agreement was reached for US$350 billion in investments in the United States. This consists of US$200 billion in cash investment and US$150 billion in shipbuilding cooperation, and an annual investment cap was set at US$20 billion to mitigate shocks to the foreign exchange market. In times of foreign exchange market instability, the timing and amount of investments can be adjusted. The two countries also agreed to establish the 'MASGA' shipbuilding and energy cooperation fund, to be led by Korean companies and pursued in a form that includes corporate guarantees. To this end, a shipbuilding cooperation consultative body under the NSC (National Security Council) will be established and operated to produce visible results in a short period. Security-related discussions were also held. The Presidential Office said, "President Trump expressed agreement with the need for South Korea to develop nuclear-powered submarines and proposed follow-up consultations." In addition, the two leaders agreed to continue strengthening the deterrence of the South Korea-U.S. alliance to respond to North Korea's nuclear threats. National Security Advisor Wi Seong-rak said, "President Trump showed high interest in cooperation on key strategic industries such as nuclear power," and evaluated that "it is significant in that the United States has officially recognized the need for South Korea's nuclear submarine capability." On the diplomatic front, President Trump said, "Contact me anytime if there is a difficult situation," and officially invited President Lee Jae-myung to the White House.

Donald Trump, the U.S. president, said that a trade agreement with South Korea had been reached. According to foreign media on the 29th (local time), President Trump, President Trump, briefly answered reporters' question in Gyeongju asking whether a trade agreement with South Korea had been reached, "Yes(We did)." He added, "We reached an agreement. The trade negotiations are almost concluded." He also evaluated the summit with South Korea positively. Trump said, "I had a great meeting with South Korea," and said, "It was a productive meeting where many things could be decided." He also revealed his position on North Korea. He said, "We were able to reach very important conclusions on matters related to national security," and said, "I believe the situation in North Korea will improve."

Global virtual asset (cryptocurrency) exchange Binance will list Afro (AT) perpetual futures. On the 29th (local time), Binance announced on its official website, "We will list AT/USDT perpetual futures today at 20:30 (KST)." It supports up to 50x leverage.