Decentralised Finance

The U.S. Department of Justice has requested a retrial for Tornado Cash founder Roman Storm on unresolved charges of money laundering and sanctions violations, with a proposed start in October 2026. The crypto community and industry leaders have expressed concern, saying Storm only wrote open-source code and should not face criminal liability.

Hong Kong and mainland China are moving to hardwire blockchain into the arteries of cross-border trade, deepening financial integration between the two hubs in what could become one of Asia’s most ambitious digital infrastructure projects.

World Liberty Financial will host an invitation-only World Liberty Forum at Mar-a-Lago, bringing together around 300 senior leaders from finance, technology and policy to discuss the future of money and regulation. The announcement follows the launch of its new crypto lending platform and plans to expand its stablecoin and digital banking services.

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) has partnered with LayerZero, a leading interoperability protocol, to enable native connectivity between Stellar and more than 150 blockchain networks. The integration allows assets—most notably USDC and other stablecoins—to move seamlessly across chains without relying on centralized bridges or intermediaries.

DappRadar, a seven-year-old blockchain analytics platform, has shut down due to financial difficulties. Its closure leaves a gap in cross-chain data services, affecting developers, investors, and users who relied on its analytics.

Circle is exploring ways to make USDC transactions reversible in cases of fraud or hacks while keeping settlements mostly final. The plan involves its new Arc blockchain, aimed at institutions, to add fraud protection without fully breaking blockchain rules.

For the first time, Binance has entered a country without using the binance branding, unlike the many other instances where the Binance branding has always been prominent, like Binance Japan(Japan), Gulf Binance (Thailand) or Binance France (France). Instead, it created an independent entity called Meda.

Binance Pay has teamed up with French fintech Lyzi to introduce cryptocurrency payments to over 80 businesses across the French Riviera, including the glamorous cities of Cannes, Nice, Antibes, and Monaco.

Garden Finance was accused of helping move stolen crypto linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, after earning $300,000 in fees in 12 days. An investigator said most of the funds came from the Bybit hack, but the platform’s founder denies any wrongdoing.

Bybit is launching Byreal, a new decentralised trading platform on Solana, with a testnet set for 30 June and mainnet in Q3 2025. It aims to combine the speed and liquidity of a centralised exchange with the fairness and openness of DeFi, using hybrid features like RFQ and CLMM routing.