In 2025, Chainalysis reported that illicit crypto addresses received at least $154 billion, with a large share tied to sanctioned entities and heavy use of stablecoins. Russia’s ruble-backed A7A5 token, launched in February 2025, processed more than $93.3 billion in transactions within the year. Although these volumes grew rapidly, illicit activity still accounted for less than 1% of overall on-chain transaction volume.

Binance has introduced perpetual futures contracts for gold and silver under the tickers XAUUSDT and XAGUSDT, expanding its derivatives offering beyond purely crypto assets. The products, settled in USDT and operating under FSRA oversight in Abu Dhabi’s ADGM, give traders onchain access to precious metals price movements without physical delivery. Other major exchanges already list similar contracts, underlining growing demand for safe-haven exposure via crypto-native infrastructure.

Wyoming has introduced the Frontier Stable Token (FRNT), described as the first stablecoin issued and backed by a US state government. The dollar-pegged token, which went live on January 7 and initially trades on Kraken via Solana, is fully collateralized by cash, cash equivalents, and short-term US Treasuries managed by Franklin Templeton. Interest from the reserves is directed to Wyoming public schools instead of FRNT holders, and state officials are testing its use for government payments amid ongoing federal regulatory uncertainty.

China's major financial industry associations have jointly stated that real-world asset tokenization falls under illegal fundraising, securities, or futures activities and is treated as unlawful finance. The directive targets Hong Kong-linked and offshore structures with mainland staff and applies liability across the Web3 service chain, from token issuers to technology, marketing, and payment providers.

In the 2024–25 financial year, 49 cryptocurrency exchanges registered with India's Financial Intelligence Unit, which now serves as the primary supervisor for virtual asset platforms under anti-money laundering rules. Non-compliant exchanges were fined a total of ₹28 crore, while authorities mapped regional transaction hotspots and flagged digital assets tied to scams, fraud, gambling and more serious criminal risks.

A phishing campaign targeting MetaMask users deploys a convincing 2FA-style workflow to capture wallet recovery phrases. According to SlowMist's chief security officer, attackers use near-identical domains and branded emails to impersonate MetaMask Support. The scheme underscores increasingly polished social engineering tactics despite reports of falling crypto phishing losses in 2025.

An on-chain alert shared by ZachXBT has highlighted a coordinated wallet-draining campaign across several EVM-compatible blockchains, with cumulative losses already exceeding $107,000 and most affected wallets losing under $2,000 each. Investigators report that the stolen funds are being routed through related addresses, but no specific wallet provider, dApp, or exploit vector has yet been identified. The pattern raises broader concerns about stealthy attacks on self-custody users interacting with multiple chains and protocols.

Unleash Protocol suffered a governance-level exploit that allowed an attacker to deploy an unauthorised contract upgrade and withdraw about $3.9 million in user assets. The incident, identified by PeckShieldAlert and later confirmed by the team, affected tokens including WIP, USDC, WETH, stIP, and vIP, with 1,337.1 ETH ultimately funneled into Tornado Cash via Ethereum bridges. Platform operations have been paused while external security specialists investigate how the multi-signature admin controls were bypassed.

Japan plans to overhaul how cryptocurrency gains are taxed in 2026, shifting eligible holdings from progressive income tax of up to 55% to a flat 20% rate. The lower rate will only apply to specified crypto assets handled under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, alongside the introduction of a three-year loss carry-forward for crypto investments. These steps are part of a wider move to bring digital assets under a framework more closely aligned with traditional securities while tightening investor protections.