Japan revised its Payment Services Act in June 2023 and continued updates through 2026, positioning fiat-pegged stablecoins as regulated payment instruments mainly for institutional use. The framework supports a three-tier issuer model, while Project Pax backed by MUFG, SMBC, and Mizuho aims for 1 trillion yen in B2B stablecoin issuance by 2028. Milestones cited include JPYC receiving a Type II license in October 2025 and JPYSC being announced in late 2025 with a Q2 2026 target.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins said Monday that the SEC's "Regulation Crypto Assets" proposal has been submitted to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for White House review ahead of publication. The package centers on a startup exemption, a fundraising exemption and an investment contract safe harbor for issuers, with Atkins saying the agency wants market feedback to keep the framework workable.

Polygon will activate the Giugliano hardfork on mainnet on April 8, targeting faster finality and new fee data fields. The Polygon Foundation said it is set for block 85,268,500 at about 2:00 p.m. UTC, and node operators need to update Bor to v2.7.0 or Erigon to v3.5.0 ahead of the activation.

The Solana Foundation said on Monday it introduced STRIDE, a security auditing and monitoring program for Solana-based DeFi protocols, alongside the Solana Incident Response Network for real-time coordination. STRIDE assesses projects across eight areas such as program security, governance controls, operational security, and incident response, with results intended to be published publicly. The update follows a reported ~$280 million loss at Drift Protocol after a social-engineering attack tied to North Korean-linked actors.

Several private banks in Argentina are running a limited pilot of JPMorgan's JPM Coin to improve interbank settlement and reconciliation times. The first phase uses traditional settlement rails with on-chain recording, aiming to cut costs and boost speed and operational efficiency. Banks still cannot offer crypto services to clients unless the Central Bank changes its 2022 Communication A 7506 rule.

Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) outlined concerns about disclosure gaps, retail-investor protection, and speculative trading tied to meme coins in an April 10 review of cryptoasset regulation. The agency signaled a shift toward tighter, more effective rules that could broaden oversight to protect users while still aiming to preserve innovation.

Chaos Labs has ended its three-year role as Aave's primary risk service provider, saying Aave's planned move to Aave V4 created added operational and legal exposure it would not take on. Chaos Labs founder Omer Goldberg said Aave Labs supported raising the engagement to $5 million, but the parties diverged on how risk management should work. Aave Labs CEO Stani Kulechov said the split was not hostile and claimed Chaos sought to become the sole risk provider and replace Chainlink oracles.

DeFi recorded $169 million in losses across 34 protocols in Q1, with incidents including a $40 million key compromise and Resolv's $24.5 million breach. While many current attacks focus on access control and key management, Circle is moving early on post-quantum cryptography, as networks face slow upgrade cycles and address-reuse exposure.