BitMEX Co-Founder Forecasts $750K to $1 Million Bitcoin Price by 2026

Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), Thailand’s oldest bank and fourth-largest lender, has launched a cross-border payments service which depends upon the use of stablecoins.  The project is the culmination of a collaboration between SCB, SCB 10X, the disruptive technology investment arm of the SCBX Group, payment solutions provider Lightnet and blockchain development platform Fireblocks. It has successfully completed its testing phase within the Bank of Thailand’s regulatory sandbox, moving forward to the commercialization phase. According to Indian news portal Business News This Week, SCB launched the cross-border payments solution on October 16 in an effort to get out ahead of its TradFi peers relative to banking and financial services innovation.Photo by allPhoto Bangkok on PexelsFaster with lower costsThe service will enable 24/7 transfers on an international basis for the bank’s retail users. In accessing the service, users may use local currency to make transactions. Ordinarily cross-border payments implicate a number of steps in order to complete clearance, including the need to effect a currency conversion. Furthermore, banks need to maintain nostro/vostro accounts with foreign banks to complete such transfers.  In this instance, the bank is claiming that transactions using the service will be much faster than existing cross-border transfer options. The clearance and settlement process will be far more efficient in terms of the time required and the liquidity requirements. Pre-funding required in the legacy process has been eliminated, reducing capital requirements, while operational costs have also been reduced. SCB’s First Executive Vice President and Head of Digital Juristic and Payment, Thanawatn Kittisuwan, commented on the development, stating: “By integrating blockchain technology, the project promises a more efficient, reliable, and accessible solution for cross-border transactions. By leveraging blockchain technology and stablecoins, we are making cross-border remittances more efficient, reliable, and accessible for everyone. SCB has a long-standing tradition of embracing innovative technologies to enhance our financial services. This latest collaboration with Lightnet and Fireblocks builds upon SCB’s history of pioneering fintech solutions. ” Improved customer experienceLightnet CEO Tribodi Arunanondchai suggested that the new service will provide significant improvements to customers’ experience in cross-border money transfer. He added that the service “promotes financial inclusion as there is a lower capital requirement per transaction,” while strengthening Thailand’s position as an ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) financial hub.  SCB and Lightnet first partnered in 2020. At that point, the duo envisaged that there was scope to cooperate in order to facilitate payment processing and frictionless real-time remittances to Thailand from any point overseas with low fees. Lightnet relies upon the Velo Protocol to enable its remittance services. Back in 2022 the firm received a $50 million commitment from LDA Capital, with Lightnet earmarking the funding to boost cross-border payments over the Velo protocol. For its part SCB has demonstrated its interest in crypto beyond this Lightnet collaboration. In 2023 the bank struck a deal with South Korean crypto venture capital firm Hashed, with the objective of pooling resources and researching and exploring how best to deploy any research outcomes relative to the company’s affiliates. The bank has also been involved in developing an application for Thailand’s central bank digital currency, the digital baht.

LINE NEXT scores biggest Web3 investment in Asia of 2023LINE NEXT, the NFT business arm of Tokyo-based Internet giant LINE Corporation, has secured a $140 million investment from a consortium led by Seoul-based private equity firm Crescendo Equity Partners, according to an official press release on Wednesday (KST). This is the largest investment in the Asian blockchain and Web3 industry this year.Photo by Precondo CA on Unsplash“LINE’s global competitiveness and its vision to lead Web3 services were the investment thesis,” said Kevin Lee, Managing Partner at Crescendo. “We hope to build a standard for Web3 apps that general users can easily use and adopt blockchain to all sorts of services and brands of Web2.”Ambitious roadmapLINE NEXT plans to use the funds to popularize Web3 by expanding its global platform and developing new services. This includes the official launch of DOSI, a global mobile NFT marketplace app for trading digital products, which will be integrated with LINE’s Japanese NFT marketplace LINE NFT. The launch is scheduled for January next year.The firm will also enable Web2 services and brands to easily adopt Web3 technology by providing new solutions that allow them to directly own and trade digital products.To further promote the widespread adoption of Web3 technology, LINE NEXT plans to create an app that utilizes AI technology to facilitate communication between users via characters they create themselves, as well as a new Web3 game featuring iconic LINE characters. These services will be developed on the public blockchain Finschia.LINE NEXT and Crescendo will also participate as governance council members of the Finschia Foundation and contribute to the expansion of the ecosystem.Strategic investmentKo Young-su, CEO of LINE NEXT, pointed out that such a large-scale investment is a major step considering the global investment environment has recently been shrinking. “We plan to use this opportunity to further popularize Web3 and develop a new service ecosystem where users own the value of their digital goods,” he said.Sponsored by Peter Thiel — the co-founder of Paypal, Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund — Crescendo is dedicated to discovering and investing in promising technology companies both in South Korea and overseas.

Mosca, a cash-to-crypto exchange headquartered at the Moscow International Business Center, was subject to a raid carried out by the Russian authorities on April 23. The raid occurred in the immediate aftermath of a call from a member of the commission of the Public Chamber (OP) of the Russian Federation to ban crypto exchanges from facilitating the purchase of cryptocurrencies using cash.Photo by Egor Filin on UnsplashInvestigating fraudWhile attending the Blockchain Life 2025 event in Moscow, Mosca’s Head of Development, Dmitry Titarenko, confirmed to Cointelegraph that the rationale provided for the raid was that it was in connection with fraud perpetrated by one of its platform users. Titarenko added: “Law enforcement agencies have carried out a standard procedure of checking our customer data.” The raid occurred during the company’s attendance at the Blockchain Life conference. Mosca was a key conference participant, having established two stands at the event and winning an award for the best crypto exchange service. Reporting on the raid, local media outlet Baza said that it had been carried out in relation to fraud perpetrated against the former head of the Samara Region Development Corporation, Olga Serova. It explained that Serova had been conned into handing over 350 million rubles ($4.24 million) and $800,000 to the scammers.  Seven arrestsShe withdrew these funds from her bank at the end of last year, despite bank officials having tried to persuade her against the withdrawal for this purpose. The news outlet added that to date, seven people have been arrested in connection with the alleged fraud. The Mosca exchange service may be proving to be attractive to scammers as the platform allows users to buy up to 100,000 USDT per day using cash. Titarenko couldn’t confirm that the raid was carried out in connection with the Serova fraud case. He said that “maybe it was [in relation to] another client.”The exchange executive also confirmed that the company had been in the process of putting in place more resources to carry out anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) checks, together with a blacklisting system related to suspicious platform users. Cash-to-crypto ban proposalThe raid occurred within 24 hours of Yevgeny Masharov, a member of the commission of the Public Chamber (OP) of the Russian Federation, putting forward a proposal to ban crypto exchanges from receiving cash, making services like Mosca’s cash-to-crypto exchange illegal. According to state-owned Russian news agency TASS, Masharov said that such a move would “cause a large-scale blow to scammers, because it’s no secret that telephone scammers use crypto exchangers to withdraw cash.”Sergey Mendeleev, a well-known figure within crypto circles in Russia, told attendees at the Blockchain Life conference that such a cash-to-crypto ban would be an unwelcome development for the sector. If such a ban were to materialize, Mendeleev suggested that it would be an indication that the Russian authorities were turning away from the greater development of cryptocurrency in Russia. Last week, it emerged that Russia’s Ministry of Finance, in collaboration with the country’s central bank, plans to launch a crypto exchange for qualified investors. The central bank also confirmed plans to launch a digital ruble payment network in 2026.