Key appointment sees Turkey’s central bank enhance crypto expertise

Iranian authorities last week introduced new restrictions on stablecoin transactions, limiting individuals to an annual purchase cap of $5,000 and a total holding limit of $10,000. According to a report from Iran International, licensed digital platforms have one month from the effective date to enforce these new regulations on all users.Photo by Hadis Malekie on UnsplashRial decline fuels stablecoin uptakeThe move coincides with the continued devaluation of the national currency, with the Iranian rial reaching an all-time low of 1,136,500 per U.S. dollar on Sept. 27. This currency plunge occurred just before the reimposition of United Nations sanctions, which took effect at 00:00 UTC on Sept. 28. Since then, the rial has weakened further, reaching a new low of 1,170,000 per U.S. dollar as of publication, as per data from Bonbast.  For many Iranians, stablecoins like USDT have become an essential financial tool, providing a hedge against inflation and a means to transfer funds internationally, bypassing the traditional banking system. The adoption of these U.S. dollar-pegged digital assets has reportedly grown since the escalation of conflicts with Israel and the U.S. earlier in the year. These new financial controls follow recent actions by the U.S. to counter what it describes as Iranian "shadow banking" networks. On Sept. 16, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned two Iranian financial operatives and their network of companies in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A press release stated these entities used cryptocurrency and front companies to transfer funds from oil sales, benefiting Iran’s IRGC-Qods Force (QF) and its Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL). The U.S. Treasury asserts these funds are funneled into regional proxy groups and the development of advanced weapons programs.U.S. dollar to rial chart Source: BonbastHack on Iran’s top crypto platformIran’s private digital currency sector has also faced mounting security pressures. In June, Nobitex, the country’s largest crypto exchange, was hit by a major exploit that drained about $90 million in assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ripple (XRP), Solana (SOL), Tron (TRX), and TON. A pro-Israel hacker group known as Predatory Sparrow, or Gonjeshke Darande, later claimed responsibility in a post on X. The attack took place during heightened military tensions that began with Israeli strikes on Iranian military and nuclear facilities on June 18, 2025. According to analysis by TRM Labs, digital assets are increasingly integral to Iran's efforts to navigate international sanctions and advance its geopolitical interests. Iranian exchanges, including Nobitex, process billions in cryptocurrency transactions. These platforms have been noted for permitting large withdrawals without stringent Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols and for employing sophisticated methods to obscure the origins and destinations of funds. At the same time, these exchanges are not used solely for state-level purposes. For many ordinary Iranians, grappling with inflation and economic isolation, digital assets represent a practical tool for safeguarding savings and maintaining limited access to the global economy, underscoring the dual role that cryptocurrency plays in the country. 

Singaporean Researchers Devise More Effective DAO VotingResearchers at the Singapore University of Social Sciences have come up with a more efficient governance model for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).Photo by Shubham Dhage on UnsplashDAO governance reviewThe scientists presented their work via a paper titled “Voting Schemes in DAO Governance,” which was published earlier this week. The paper is due to appear in the Annual Review of Fintech in due course.The research paper initially sets out with a review of the different forms of voting currently used to affect DAO governance in the various early stage projects that are already up and running. Having taken a deep dive into existing approaches, the research team of Qinxu Ding, Weibiao Xu, Zhiguo Wang and David Kuo Chuen Lee decided that they could go one better themselves.Their review encompassed eight current approaches including the following: token-based quorum voting, knowledge-extractable voting, conviction voting and reputation-based voting. Each voting scheme was then evaluated based on the following factors:Efficiency: An assessment of the speed at which proposals are selected and approved.Fairness: Each voter should have equal rights to vote.Scalability: The degree to which storage, computation and communication needs can be adjusted relative to the number of voters.Robustness: An assessment of the relative resistance of the voting scheme to attacks and collusion.Incentive Schemes: The extent to which DAO members are motivated to vote.Following on from that analysis, the scientists put forward a hypothetical voting mechanism with design considerations relative to fully decentralized and permissionless DAO governance. When it came to ratings, the holographic consensus approach scored highest, with a “high” rating in the categories of efficiency, fairness and robustness, dropping down to medium when it came to scalability. None of the other approaches came close.In trying to go one better, the team took the holographic consensus approach and set out to create their own hypothetical voting mechanism based on this model. As evidenced from the paper, they tried to effect improvements to this approach:“We know that the downside of the conviction voting mechanism is that it takes time to approve an urgent proposal. To address this concern, we introduce a blind betting mechanism: each member could choose whether to bet on any proposals with a certain number of their tokens.”The researcher’s hypothetical model allows stakeholders to gamble their tokens on the likelihood of a proposal passing or failing. The logic with this approach, they claim, is that it would speed up the governance process, while making it more robust at the same time.In concluding remarks, the researchers acknowledged that all approaches were not without their pros and cons. They point out that the further development of DAOs shouldn’t be confined to a static organizational future. While they believe that their own hypothetical scheme is in theory superior, they acknowledge that it too has flaws. With that, the realities of implementing it in the real world may be a challenge.

The Royal Government of Bhutan has moved $66 million in Bitcoin (BTC) to global crypto exchange Binance. That’s according to blockchain data analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, outlining that the assets were moved to Binance over two separate transactions. The firm took to the X social media platform on Oct. 29 to highlight the digital asset transfer. In its X post, the firm wrote:”Crypto wallets belonging to the Royal Government of Bhutan moved $66.55M BTC to Binance this morning. The last time they deposited to exchanges was 4 months ago, at the start of July.”Photo by Moose Photos on PexelsSell-off concernsSome crypto community commentators have expressed concern of a sell-off given that the nation nestled in the Himalayas still has a holding of 12,456 Bitcoin, worth in the region of $900 million. The transfer was made on a day in which Bitcoin reached a unit price in excess of $73,000.  Arkham outlined that geographical data suggests that Bhutan’s Bitcoin mines remain active. On Oct. 29, they had accumulated $600,000 worth of Bitcoin mining rewards on-chain.  In this latest market activity, the Bhutanese began selling when the Bitcoin unit price had exceeded $70,000. As Bitcoin reaches towards new all-time-high pricing, Bitcoin whales often take profits. Mining Bitcoin since $5KIt emerged in 2023 that Bhutan had been quietly mining Bitcoin over the course of a number of years, since the leading digital asset had a unit price of around $5,000. The commercial activity has been enabled via Druk Holding and Investments (DHI), the commercial arm of the Royal Government of Bhutan. The Asian nation has ample hydroelectricity resources, being the only carbon-negative country in the world. Consequently, all its Bitcoin mining is carried out using hydro. While mining activity had been ongoing for a number of years and had largely gone unnoticed by the industry, an entanglement between DHI and failed crypto lenders BlockFi and Celsius brought more attention onto the Bhutanese holding company’s activities relative to crypto.  LawsuitsDHI was sued by BlockFi with the action subsequently voluntarily dismissed. In the case of Celsius it withdrew around $65 million from the platform prior to Celsius declaring bankruptcy. As a consequence, Celsius is currently suing DHI to claw back the funds that were removed from the platform. In 2023 Singaporean Bitcoin mining firm Bitdeer entered into a partnership with DHI with a view towards jointly developing green digital asset mining operation within the Kingdom of Bhutan. At the time, DHI CEO Ujjwal Deep Dahal said that the partnership formed part of an overall strategy to ensure that Bhutan took its place at the forefront of global innovation. Arkham Intelligence outlined on X that in H2 2023, Bhutan’s Bitcoin mining operations were producing in the region of 26 Bitcoin per day, or 780 Bitcoin per month. However, over the past three months, that mining rate has decreased to 8.6 BTC per day or 260 BTC per month. Arkham suggests that the Bitcoin halving, together with the increase in the Bitcoin hashrate, explains the reduced output, although it speculated that some unknown issue with Bitcoin mining rigs may also be a contributing factor.