In Focus/Policy & Regulation
Decisions from the SEC, CFTC, FCA and others — bills, charters, licences, sanctions.
Article 17 of Italy’s draft 2027 budget would tax unrealized gains of long-term residents who move abroad with €800,000 or more in assets. The headline rate is 26%, but crypto media are reading it as 33% for tokens, and the government has not said which applies.
Crypto-funded political groups have put somewhere between $176 million and more than $200 million into the U.S. midterms, depending on who is counting. Tuesday’s results, led by an Ohio Senate race the industry has spent heavily to swing, will shape whether the stalled market structure bill gets another chance this year.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has taken Utah to federal court to stop the state from policing Kalshi and other event-contract exchanges. It is the agency’s tenth such suit, and it lands in a district where a judge has already sided with Utah.
Ripple now has a fully approved federal trust bank that will hold the reserves behind its RLUSD stablecoin. The approval lands as community bankers sue the OCC over the very charter model it relies on, and less than three months before the GENIUS Act takes effect.
Aviva Investors has added a blockchain-recorded share class to its largest money market fund, the latest sign that tokenized cash products are moving into mainstream asset management. The launch lands days after the SEC and ESMA both put tokenization on their supervisory agendas.
Coinbase carried out a one-time conversion on Oct. 30 of 14 stablecoins that lack MiCA authorization, among them USDT, PYUSD, USD1 and DAI, swapping remaining EEA retail balances into USDC or another supported asset at market rates. Tokens sent to Coinbase after the cutoff will not be credited; the exchange noted that MiCA's transition period for issuers ended July 1 without extension. Source: Unchained
Intercontinental Exchange said on Oct. 29 it will run a new market and clearing structure built on Hyperliquid for Trade[XYZ]'s perpetual futures on crypto, stocks, commodities and currencies, aimed at KYC-verified U.S. retail traders, and will take a strategic stake in Trade[XYZ]. The plan needs regulatory approvals that have not yet been sought, and no launch date was given. Source: ICE
Ripple used its Swell event on Oct. 27 to announce that Robinhood will bring the RLUSD stablecoin to its retail app later this year, use it on the XRP Ledger for institutional settlement and adopt Ripple Treasury for cash management. BNY's digital asset custody platform now holds XRP and RLUSD, and the two plan to let bank clients mint and redeem the token directly. RLUSD's market value is about $2.57 billion. Source: Cointelegraph
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Ripple's Swell conference in New York on Oct. 27 that Congress's failure to pass the CLARITY Act was a disappointment, but that Treasury can push crypto oversight forward with the SEC and CFTC through agency action. He grouped digital assets with AI and chips in the technology race with China and noted that more than 90% of stablecoins are tied to the dollar and often backed by Treasuries. Rules made by agencies would not carry the durability of a statute. Source: CoinDesk
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is reviewing whether Polymarket kept U.S. users off its offshore market as its 2022 settlement required, Reuters reported Oct. 27, citing two people familiar with the matter. Investigators are said to be looking at how the platform located users, its U.S. marketing and onboarding on its newer U.S. venue. Earlier CFTC and Justice Department probes closed in July 2025 without charges, and all parties declined to comment. Source: Unchained
The CFTC's innovation task force will host its first Frontier Forum on Wednesday, focused on how artificial intelligence could reshape U.S. derivatives markets and their oversight. Participants include crypto firms Chainlink, Hedera and Tempo, trading-technology companies such as OneChronos, and the Investment Company Institute. Topics include AI agents that use blockchains and stablecoins to trade without human input, and whether current rules cover them. Source: Bloomingbit
Exchange MEXC says in an updated country restrictions guide that it is not authorized to provide crypto-asset services under the EU's MiCA rules, as it finishes closing accounts for users in the Netherlands. The guide gives Nov. 16 as the final offboarding date, later than the Oct. 31 completion date in an earlier notice, and MEXC has also said it will stop serving users in Russia and Belarus. Source: crypto.news
Britain's Financial Conduct Authority opened consultation CP26/38 on Oct. 23, proposing to add crypto examples to its Financial Crime Guide covering due diligence, transaction monitoring, blockchain analytics and Travel Rule practice. The draft discourages fixed tracing cutoffs that are not tied to a firm's own risk assessment and expects firms to be able to explain scores from third-party monitoring tools. The guide sets supervisory expectations rather than new rules, and comments close Dec. 24. Source: TokenPost
