The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has approved crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) that offer investors 3x leveraged exposure to bitcoin and ether. The decision allows issuers to launch leveraged crypto ETPs, giving traders amplified participation in BTC and ETH price moves. The move marks a further regulatory acceptance of crypto derivatives-style products and introduces new trading tools that could attract additional capital.

Circle is lobbying the European Union to relax reserve rules under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) that require stablecoin issuers to keep a minimum share of reserves as bank deposits. MiCA currently sets that floor at 30% for e-money token issuers and 60% for issuers the EU deems significant. Circle cites USDC’s brief de-pegging during the 2023 Silicon Valley Bank episode as evidence that high concentration in bank deposits can threaten stability, and it also proposes removing a 35% cap on exposure to any single sovereign and a 1.5% limit tied to any one bank’s total assets. Circle shares, CRCL, are currently trading at $87.80.

NEAR Intents, a crosschain swap protocol built on NEAR, suffered a security exploit on Thursday that resulted in losses of about $3.8 million. The service has been paused. A week earlier, the protocol publicly blocked up to $50 million in stolen funds linked to the Bitget attackers. The team said it has patched the flaw and will fully reimburse users.

Bitget said BTC withdrawals are now live on the Bitcoin mainnet and BSC, with 9,585 orders and 4,098.036 BTC processed as of 17:00 UTC+8. The exchange said ETH, USDT and other assets will reopen in phases starting tomorrow. Bitget said the incident stemmed from vulnerabilities in third-party products that enabled an attacker to obtain internal credentials and submit fraudulent withdrawal commands that bypassed risk controls, while private keys and cold wallets were not affected. The platform said user funds are fully covered by the Bitget Protection Fund and it will replenish the fund to >$300M with its own capital within the week.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has provided interim regulatory clarity on Ethereum staking, with 1.68 million ETH currently awaiting processing. The guidance is intended to offer market participants transitional direction and delineate compliance boundaries for staking services, but it does not yet establish a final rule framework. The move underscores regulators’ ongoing focus on crypto staking activities and may ease near-term policy uncertainty, while the long-term compliance path remains to be clarified.

Ripple has received early approval for an EU Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) license in Luxembourg, positioning it to offer compliant crypto-asset services for European payment rails. The approval is expected to speed up processing across Europe’s payment networks. The company also plans to open institutional onramps this quarter. The move marks a key step in Ripple’s EU compliance rollout.

The number of tokenized equity holders on the Solana blockchain has surpassed 1 million for the first time. The milestone signals a new high in adoption of real-world asset tokenization on the network. It also reflects market validation of Solana’s infrastructure for supporting compliant security tokens.

Payy’s bridging protocol was hit by a security exploit that has frozen its crypto card services, putting users’ account balances at risk. The attacker allegedly used a vulnerability in the bridge contract to move assets illegally, including stablecoins such as USDC. Affected users are unable to make payments or withdraw funds. The incident underscores serious weaknesses in Payy’s asset custody and cross-chain bridge security, directly disrupting crypto payment apps that rely on its services.