South Korea's financial authorities are reviewing an expansion of the crypto Travel Rule to include transfers under ₩1,000,000 (~$680), requiring exchanges to collect sender and recipient details. A Korea FIU-led task force met on November 29 to draft amendments to the Special Act, with proposals including temporary account suspensions and broader AML obligations.

Trust Wallet has launched a formal claims process for users affected by its Chrome extension v2.68 incident that exposed recovery phrases and drained funds. The company confirmed the breach on December 25 and outlined the compensation workflow on December 26. Changpeng Zhao said around $7 million was affected and pledged reimbursement for verified losses.

China’s central bank will permit commercial banks to pay interest on digital yuan balances starting Jan. 1, 2026. The overhaul redesigns the e-CNY as a digital deposit currency with deposit insurance protection and integration into banks’ asset–liability management. Usage has grown, with billions of transactions and hundreds of millions of wallets reported.

A report published on 27 December alleges wallets linked to Andrew Tate received about $1.2 million from addresses named in a Texas lawsuit tied to a $5 million investment scam. Court documents filed in March 2025 describe laundering between January 2023 and February 2025, while related wallets reportedly moved up to $30M into the privacy protocol Railgun over the past two years.

Hacken's 2025 Yearly Security Report estimates Web3 losses at about $3.95 billion, up roughly $1.1 billion from 2024, with North Korea-linked clusters responsible for around half of the stolen funds. The Bybit breach of nearly $1.5 billion and widespread access control failures drove most losses, while regulators in major jurisdictions outlined security expectations that many Web3 firms still failed to implement.

China's central bank introduced a framework permitting commercial banks to pay interest on digital yuan wallet balances starting Jan. 1, 2026. The shift is intended to move e-CNY from a cash-like instrument to deposit-style money and let banks account for it in asset-liability management, according to deputy governor Lu Lei.

On December 29, 2025, California advanced a plan for a 2026 one-time 5% tax on net assets above $1 billion, including unrealized gains. Crypto and tech leaders warn the measure could propel wealth and talent to lower-tax jurisdictions. Supporters contend it would bolster funding for programs such as Medi-Cal.

In a 2025 interview, Pact Swap co-founder Toby Gilbert explains how the platform aims to reduce custody-related risks that have cost the crypto industry billions. Pact Swap uses collateralized smart contracts on Coinweb and relies on native blockchain consensus to offer cross-chain swaps that can be up to 90% cheaper than many existing solutions. The discussion also covers the $PACT governance and utility token, which manages value capture and ecosystem incentives without being used directly for transaction fees.