08 Sep, 2025

South Korea Caps Crypto Lending at 20% Interest, Bans Leveraged Loans

South Korea's Financial Services Commission published a new guideline on crypto lending services for centralized trading platforms on Friday."The guideline clearly defines the scope of virtual asset lending services by referring to global cases, providing various user protection measures," the FSC said in its press release.The new rules prohibit leveraged lending that exceeds the value of collateral, and set an interest rate cap of 20%. They also restrict products that require users to repay with cash instead of crypto, as this is considered a violation of credit business regulations.Companies offering these services must use their own capital and are prohibited from circumventing the rules through third-party services, the guideline states.To protect users, the guideline also mandates limits on a user's lending amount based on their experience and transaction history. Additionally, users must be notified in advance if they are at risk of liquidation.Limited OfferingsThe guideline also stipulates that lending services are limited to the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, or cryptocurrencies that are traded on three or more licensed local exchanges.If a cryptocurrency is designated as cautionary by crypto exchanges, lending services for that asset must also be halted.The FSC said the guideline will be applied starting today, overseen by Digital Asset Exchange Alliance (DAXA), the joint consultative body in compliance with local regulators. The commission plans to legislate the new rules based on implementation results.The new guideline comes after the FSC ordered local exchanges to suspend their lending operations on Aug. 19, in response to a series of lending service launches by Upbit, Bithumb and other platforms.

03 Sep, 2025

US Federal Reserve to Hold Conference With Focus on Stablecoins, Tokenization

The United States Federal Reserve will hold a conference next month on "payments innovation," which will include discussions around stablecoin business models and the tokenization of financial products and services.The conference will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 21, and bring together a range of interested parties to discuss how to innovate and improve the payments system."Innovation has been a constant in payments to meet the changing needs of consumers and businesses," Fed Governor Christopher Waller said in Wednesday's release. "I look forward to examining the opportunities and challenges of new technologies, bringing together ideas on how to improve the safety and efficiency of payments, and hearing from those helping to shape the future of payments."Along with the aforementioned stablecoin and tokenization ideas, the Payments Innovation Conference will feature panel discussions on the convergence of traditional and decentralized finance and the intersection of artificial intelligence and payments.The conference will be livestreamed for the public on the agency's website.The central bank has embraced crypto under the Trump administration. In April, the central bank withdrew guidance that previously discouraged banks from participating in crypto and stablecoin activities. The Fed has also ended a program supervising banks involved in crypto and removed the "reputational risk" classification from bank examinations, which were viewed as a win against crypto debanking, The Block previously reported.The most recent minutes from July's Federal Open Market Committee suggested that fiat-pegged tokens could "improve the efficiency of the payment system ... They also observed that such stablecoins could increase the demand for the assets needed to back them, including Treasury securities."