Blockchain / Crypto

Financial institutions across Asia-Pacific are moving aggressively to build digital asset infrastructure, with custody and tokenized securities emerging as key priorities, according to 2026 survey report “The Financial Grid” conducted by digital asset infrastructure company Fireblocks.

AWARP, a financial infrastructure project focused on emerging markets, has secured a strategic investment from Animoca Brands to support the development of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and cross-border payment networks.

DeFi is an evolving and promising direction for crypto but its success hinges on infrastructure stability and reliability as centralized exchanges create a foundation of security.

Bithumb, a major virtual asset exchange in South Korea, and SSID, a subsidiary of Vietnam's stock broker SSI Securities, will jointly launch and operate on a virtual asset exchange business in Vietnam.

GSR, a crypto capital markets and liquidity partner, has secured strategic investment from SC Ventures, the fintech investment arm of Standard Chartered.

Khazanah Nasional Berhad, in collaboration with the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC), has successfully priced Malaysia’s first tokenized sukuk with a nominal value of MYR 100 million (25.31 million), marking an important step in the application of digital technologies to support the future development of Malaysia’s domestic capital market.

The tools to build fake identities are improving faster than the tools to detect them, and that gap is only going to widen. Every month that passes, the synthetic personas get more convincing, the scams get harder to spot, and the losses get larger.

Nium, the Singapore-based payments firm, has announced a partnership with American cryptocurrency exchange company Coinbase to enable USDC stablecoin payments across its platform.

OCBC and its asset management arm, Lion Global Investors, together with digital asset exchange DigiFT, have launched the OCBC-LionGlobal Physical Gold Fund Token (GOLDX token) – Southeast Asia’s first tokenized physical gold fund available on a public blockchain.

Blockchain plays a transformative role in smart city management by improving security, transparency, and operational efficiency. It empowers governments, companies, and citizens to interact within a trusted, decentralized ecosystem.