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Oman Launches Mandatory National Bitcoin Mining Pool In State-Backed Push For Regulatory Control

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Oman Launches Mandatory National Bitcoin Mining Pool In State-Backed Push For Regulatory Control

Oman has taken one of the most direct steps by any government to bring bitcoin mining under formal state oversight, launching a mandatory national mining pool that licensed operators across the sultanate are required to join.

The pool, Omanhash.com, was launched by Oman’s Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology and will run in cooperation with Frontier Technologies LLC, an Omani blockchain and Web3 company. 

Enegix Global, a vertically integrated digital energy and infrastructure company, built the technology platform and liquidity infrastructure behind it. The company called it the official national cryptocurrency mining pool of the Sultanate of Oman.

Under the approved regulatory framework, Omanhash.om is the sole official and mandatory mining pool for all licensed cryptocurrency mining companies in the country. The pool is expected to consolidate roughly 10 exahashes per second of computing power in its initial phase — a measure of the total computational work directed at securing the Bitcoin network and, by extension, minting new coins.

That hashrate matters for Bitcoin in a direct way. The more concentrated and regulated that hashrate becomes within a national framework, the greater the government’s visibility into mining revenue, energy consumption, and the flow of newly minted bitcoin. It seems the country is not trying to ban or restrict the activity — it is pulling it into a structured, trackable system.

Oman’s mining push

The country has been one of the most active jurisdictions in the Middle East for industrial-scale mining investment since 2022, when the ministry launched a $370 million hydro-cooled mining facility in Salalah. 

Total investments in mining and data center infrastructure in the Salalah Free Zone have since surpassed $700 million, including two major facilities built in 2022 and 2023. Alps Blockchain, an Italian firm, brought a 150 MW facility in Salalah to full operation in mid-2025. Oman’s Omanhash.om reflects the government’s next phase: pulling that accumulation of capacity into a regulated, transparent national architecture.

For Enegix, the mandate is its second sovereign-pool contract. The company built and operates btcpool.kz in Kazakhstan, where a 2023 digital assets law requires licensed miners to operate through government-accredited pools and report revenue to tax authorities through an automated system. 

The addition of Omanhash.om brings Enegix’s combined pool operations to about 25 EH/s across three pools.

“This is our second sovereign mandate, and it validates the model we have been building since Kazakhstan,” said Olzhas Amirov, chief business development officer of Enegix Global in a company press release, noting that licensing frameworks help miners operate within the law, avoid punitive taxation, and communicate with regulators.

Oman’s approach stands as a contrast to jurisdictions that have pushed back against mining with outright bans or heavy tax burdens. Instead, the sultanate has embedded mining within a broader economic diversification strategy — and is now adding a layer of centralized control that keeps bitcoin production inside the country’s regulatory reach. 

Enegix said its next target is to grow its combined pool hashrate to 30 EH/s.

Malta’s financial regulator explores bringing parts of DeFi under MiCA’s orbit

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Malta’s financial regulator explores bringing parts of DeFi under MiCA’s orbit

Malta’s financial regulator is exploring how decentralized finance (DeFi) could fit within the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, focusing on governance, accountability and the meaning of “full decentralization.”

The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) said that while MiCA excludes cryptocurrency services provided in a “fully decentralised manner without any intermediary,” many DeFi projects retain centralized features such as administrator keys, governance concentration, protocol upgrade rights and control over user-facing interfaces, in a discussion paper published Wednesday.

The regulator is seeking feedback on whether decentralization should be assessed as a spectrum rather than a binary concept and whether a standardized framework should be developed to determine when a protocol falls outside MiCA’s scope.

DeFi is something of a grey area under the EU’s framework for regulating crypto, as it excludes services provided in a fully decentralised manner, but lacks a clear description of when a protocol or platform meets that threshold.

MSFA’s paper also asks whether regulated crypto firms should be required to conduct smart-contract audits, governance reviews and risk assessments before integrating DeFi protocols into their services.

Bitcoin market cap rebound to take '5-10 years' after dropping 10 places since mid-2025

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Bitcoin market cap rebound to take '5-10 years' after dropping 10 places since mid-2025

Bitcoin could be absent from the world’s top five assets by market cap until 2036, despite an estimate seeing the BTC bear market being nearly 70% complete.

Trace Finance Raises $32M to Expand Stablecoin Settlement Rails Across Brazil, U.S. and APAC

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Trace Finance Raises $32M to Expand Stablecoin Settlement Rails Across Brazil, U.S. and APAC

  • Trace Finance has raised $32 million in Series A funding led by CoinFund
  • The Brazil-based fintech startup plans to use the fund to expand its regulated cross-border payments and stablecoin settlement infrastructure.
  • The raise comes as Brazil tightens oversight of stablecoin and FX flows.

Trace Finance has raised $32 million in Series A funding to expand its regulated cross-border payments and stablecoin settlement infrastructure.

The round was led by CoinFund, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, Jump Capital, Valor Capital, Paxos, HOF Capital and others.

Trace said the funding will be used to scale transaction capacity, deepen its FX, Pix, compliance and stablecoin settlement products, and expand its regulated footprint across Brazil, the United States, APAC and broader Latin America.

The company provides financial infrastructure for enterprises, fintechs, exchanges, payment companies and global platforms moving money through emerging markets.

Its stack combines local payment rails, Pix connectivity, banking infrastructure, FX, compliance operations and stablecoin-enabled settlement. Trace’s website says it supports Brazilian real-to-stablecoin conversion through Pix integration and connects with local rails including Pix, SPEI, ACH and SEPA.

Trace said it has processed more than $10 billion in institutional cross-border volume to date.

The company also said it is the main provider for the top four global payment providers operating in Latin America, including dLocal.

In 2022, Trace raised $4.3 million in a seed funding round led by HOF Capital and included Circle Ventures, Mantis VC, BlockFi and others.

Brazil has become an important test market for stablecoin-based payments

In February 2025, Brazil’s central bank chief Gabriel Galipolo said about 90% of the country’s crypto flow was tied to stablecoins, mainly due to payment use cases. He also pointed to oversight concerns around taxation, money laundering and payments regulation.

Brazilian regulators have since moved to bring more virtual-asset activity into the formal financial system.

In November 2025, Brazil’s central bank issued new rules for the crypto sector, extending anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing requirements to virtual asset service providers. The rules also classified some fiat-pegged virtual asset transactions, including stablecoin payments and transfers, as foreign exchange operations.

That shift impacts Trace’s business model.

The company is not pitching stablecoins as a standalone replacement for banks. It is positioning itself as the regulated bridge between global stablecoin liquidity and local banking systems in complex markets.

“Stablecoins alone do not solve cross-border payments. Stablecoins plus regulated local bank infrastructure does,” Bernardo Brites, co-founder and CEO of Trace Finance, said in a statement shared with AlexaBlockchain.

“This round lets us deepen the banking, payments, and compliance infrastructure that global fintechs, exchanges, international banks and enterprises rely on to bridge digital settlement with trusted local financial systems,” Brites added.

“We built Trace bridging the U.S. to Brazil and are now extending that infrastructure across LatAm and other emerging markets.”

Pix is another important part of the story.

Launched by Brazil’s central bank in 2020, Pix has become one of the country’s most important payment systems. Pix is expected to account for 50% of Brazil’s e-commerce transactions by 2028, according to a study by payments firm Ebanx.

For cross-border payment companies, Pix connectivity can be critical.

It gives global payment firms access to a real-time domestic payment rail in Brazil, while stablecoins can support faster international settlement and liquidity movement. That combination is where Trace says it operates.

Brazil’s scale also gives Trace a larger market to build from.

Chainalysis said Brazil received an estimated $318.8 billion in crypto value in 2024, representing nearly one-third of Latin America’s crypto activity. It also ranked Brazil fifth in its 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index.

The broader stablecoin market is also becoming more institutional.

Stripe, Ripple and other payment infrastructure firms have argued that stablecoins can reduce settlement time and improve cross-border payment efficiency. But the Bank for International Settlements has warned that stablecoin use in cross-border payments also creates regulatory, risk-management and monetary-sovereignty challenges.

That is why regulated infrastructure is becoming a competitive layer.

Stablecoins can move value quickly, but enterprises still need banking access, compliance checks, FX execution, local payout rails and regulatory coverage before those flows can be used in production.

CoinFund partner Einar H. Braathen said the next phase of global money movement will depend on companies that can connect onchain settlement with trusted local banking systems.

“Brazil is one of the largest and most operationally complex payment environments in the world, and Trace has built the regulated infrastructure that global blue-chip businesses are using to scale, while saving time and costs compared to legacy alternatives,” Braathen said.

The round also included support from strategic backers and operators across crypto, payments and banking.

Participants included Circle co-founder Sean Neville, Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Mesh co-founder and CEO Bam Azizi, and Ricardo Villela Marino, partner and vice chairman of Itaú Unibanco.

Trace said it is also developing new settlement products built on its regulated banking infrastructure.

The goal is to deepen its role connecting local financial systems in Brazil and Latin America with global stablecoin liquidity.

Why does it matter?

Trace’s funding reflects a broader shift in stablecoin adoption.

The market is moving beyond crypto-native transfers and toward regulated financial infrastructure that can be used by payment companies, banks, fintechs and global enterprises.

Brazil shows why that matters.

Stablecoin use is already large, Pix has become a major domestic payment rail, and regulators are pushing crypto-linked flows into clearer FX and compliance frameworks. That creates demand for companies that can handle the full stack: stablecoin liquidity, local banking access, FX, compliance and settlement.

The value is not only faster payments. It is the ability to move money through emerging markets without relying only on slow correspondent banking routes or fragmented local providers.

Trace’s Series A round shows investors see that bridge between stablecoins and regulated banking as one of the next important layers in global payments.

The above article “Trace Finance Raises $32M to Expand Stablecoin Settlement Rails Across Brazil, U.S. and APAC” was first published on AlexaBlockchain. Read the complete article here: https://alexablockchain.com/trace-finance-raises-32m-series-a-funding/

Read Also: Polygon’s 5,000 TPS Upgrade Could Make Stablecoin Payments Viable for Payroll, Remittances and B2B Settlement

Disclaimer: The information provided on AlexaBlockchain is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Read complete disclaimer here.

The bond market is flashing a clear signal on interest rates. Bitcoin bulls should take note

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The bond market is flashing a clear signal on interest rates. Bitcoin bulls should take note

The move marks a notable reversal from the start of the year, when the curve was steepening, a sign markets were pricing in rate cuts, which were then cited as a tailwind for risk assets including cryptocurrencies. That tailwind now looks like it’s fading.

Here’s why the curve matters

Bonds serve as one of the channels through which monetary and fiscal policies are transmitted into markets and the economy. Hence, shifts in the bond market curve or spreads are often clearer and more reliable signals of impending policy changes than individual analyst commentary.

The two-year yield moves closely with expectations for near-term Fed policy, while the 10-year yield reflects where markets see growth and inflation over the longer haul.

Under normal conditions, the curve (the spread between the two) slopes upward as investors demand extra compensation, or a premium, to lock up their money for longer periods, pushing the 10-year yield above the two-year yield.

When that gap narrows, it usually means one of two things: investors are pricing in higher interest rates for longer, which keeps the two-year yield elevated, or they’re growing more pessimistic about long-term growth, which pulls the 10-year yield down.

Right now, the move looks like the former, especially in the wake of Wednesday’s Fed decision, in which the central bank held interest rates unchanged, but the broader messaging leaned hawkish.

Illinois Enacts the Strictest Digital-Asset Tax in the US as Industry Group Urges Veto

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Illinois Enacts the Strictest Digital-Asset Tax in the US as Industry Group Urges Veto

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed SB 3019, the Digital Asset Privilege Tax Act, making the state the first in the country to impose a transaction-based tax on everyday digital-asset activity. The Crypto Council for Innovation is pushing for a line-item veto of Article 3.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed SB 3019, the Digital Asset Privilege Tax Act, according to ChainCatcher via Bitget News, making the state the first in the country to impose a transaction-based tax on everyday digital-asset activity.

The Crypto Council for Innovation, a global industry alliance, has formally requested a line-item veto of Article 3, the section that establishes the levy. The group warns the law could “seriously impair digital asset use and investment” across the state.

The bill taxes digital-asset exchange, transfer, and custody at a rate of 0.2% per transaction, applying at each point of use rather than tying the tax to income or capital gains. As a16z crypto’s Miles Jennings noted on X, “there is effectively no comparable state financial transaction tax imposed on the exchange, transfer, or custody of stocks, bonds, or derivatives anywhere in the country.”

CCI adds that the law contains no meaningful exemptions for routine activities such as moving assets between one’s own accounts, meaning Illinois consumers bear the levy even on self-transfers between wallets. The group’s letter draws an explicit comparison: an investor who exchanges, transfers, or holds a stock, bond, or derivative incurs no equivalent state tax, regardless of whether the transaction settles on paper or through a brokerage platform.

“Uniquely Punitive”

CCI CEO Ji Hun Kim wrote to Pritzker urging a line-item veto of Article 3. The letter argues the regime singles out digital assets for “uniquely punitive treatment based not on the substance of the underlying transaction, but solely on the technology used to process it.”

CCI also raised concerns about the legislative process: a first-of-its-kind tax affecting an entire industry and its consumers advanced without meaningful stakeholder engagement. The timing is particularly disruptive, arriving as Illinois businesses navigate the newly enacted Digital Assets and Consumer Protection Act and Congress advances a national digital-asset tax framework through the House Ways and Means Committee.

The broader stakes center on precedent. CCI warns that if the law stands, Illinois could inadvertently spark a fifty-state patchwork of conflicting digital-asset tax regimes that undercuts any coherent federal approach as Congress works through stablecoin and market-structure legislation. Illinois has made no public statement on whether it will consider the line-item veto request.

Kalshi Eyes Broader Asset Classes for Perpetual Futures After $5.5B Crypto Launch

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Kalshi Eyes Broader Asset Classes for Perpetual Futures After $5.5B Crypto Launch

After generating $5.5 billion in trading volume in two weeks, Kalshi is pushing to extend its CFTC-regulated perpetual futures beyond crypto into a wider range of asset classes.

After generating $5.5 billion in trading volume in two weeks, Kalshi is pushing to extend its CFTC-regulated perpetual futures beyond crypto into a wider range of asset classes.

Kalshi’s perpetual futures business crossed $5.5 billion in trading volume in its first two weeks, according to Bloomberg. That figure lands less than three weeks after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved Kalshi’s bitcoin perpetual contract on May 29, making the exchange the first U.S.-registered venue to list true perpetual futures as a futures product.

With 11 crypto-referenced contracts now live, co-founder Tarek Mansour said the company is in talks with regulators about expanding into other asset classes, a move that would reposition Kalshi from a prediction-market platform into a multi-asset derivatives exchange.

The two-week volume figure matters as a proof-of-concept for the regulatory model the CFTC assembled in late May. Alongside approving Kalshi’s BTCPERP contract, the commission issued a policy statement establishing that perpetual contracts on asset classes not covered by that initial order will require a voluntary, case-by-case review under Regulation 40.3.

That provision creates the procedural path Kalshi would need to follow to list perps on non-crypto commodities, equity indexes, or foreign exchange pairs. The commission’s May 29 advisory on 24/7 trading and clearing addresses the operational requirements those new categories would impose.

The expansion signal fits a pattern Kalshi has been building toward. The company launched a dedicated Commodities Hub in April for event contracts tied to energy, metals, and agricultural markets.

Offshore perpetual futures volumes grew from $28 trillion in annual notional in 2023 to over $90 trillion in 2025, a market inaccessible to U.S.-regulated venues until this spring.

A June 12 CFTC no-action letter enabling other designated contract markets to convert existing perpetual-style digital commodity contracts into true perpetuals before a June 30 deadline signals that additional DCMs are expected to follow. Any Kalshi expansion into equity-index or FX perps would require fresh filings under the Regulation 40.3 process, making the timeline subject to regulatory pace.

XRP slips 4% below $1.20 after breakout rally stalls near key resistance

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XRP slips 4% below $1.20 after breakout rally stalls near key resistance

XRP’s push toward $1.25 ran into the same problem that has capped every rally since the spring selloff: sellers waiting overhead. After briefly trading above $1.22, the token lost the $1.20 level on heavy volume and spent the rest of the session trying to stabilize above support near $1.18.

The pullback doesn’t fully undo last week’s breakout, but it does show buyers still have work to do before the market can challenge higher resistance levels.

News Background

• XRP remains in focus after recent ETF inflows and growing institutional participation helped drive last week’s rally above $1.20.

• Analysts continue to watch the $1.11-$1.15 demand zone that launched the latest recovery, viewing it as the line separating a correction from a larger breakdown.

• Longer-term charts still show XRP trading beneath major moving averages despite the rebound from early June lows.

Price Action Summary

• XRP fell from $1.2170 to $1.1869 during the 24-hour session, losing 2.5%.

• Selling intensified during the June 17 19:00 UTC session when volume surged to 128.7 million XRP, more than double normal levels, breaking support at $1.20.

• The token later found buyers near $1.1750 and recovered modestly into the close, holding above the session low of $1.1747.

Technical Analysis

• The loss of $1.20 is the key development. That level had acted as support after XRP’s breakout above $1.14 and $1.18 earlier in the week.

Bitcoin (BTC) layer-2s face a bear-market reality check

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Bitcoin (BTC) layer-2s face a bear-market reality check

The distinction matters. Wrapped bitcoin products such as WBTC, Coinbase’s cbBTC and Circle’s recently announced synthetic bitcoin product already allow BTC to circulate in DeFi. But Tse said many bitcoin holders dislike giving up custody in exchange for synthetic tokens.

“Most users, many users, do not like it,” he said. “They don’t want to give up title, they don’t want to give up custody.”

Bitcoin layer-2s

Orkun Mahir Kılıç, co-founder and CEO of Chainway Labs, developer of Citrea, offered a blunter critique of the sector’s earlier ambitions.

“Trying to do the same things as Solana the day you launch doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

Bitcoin layer-2s should stop pitching themselves as general-purpose blockchains, he added. The market already has mature ecosystems for trading, lending, consumer applications and perpetual futures.

Instead, Kılıç said, Bitcoin layer-2s should focus on products “uniquely enabled by Bitcoin security and settlement.”

There are still things that wait to be solved on the Bitcoin layer-2 markets,” he said. “But definitely general-purpose ecosystem focus, like trying to compete with Ethereum applications on your day one, is a little bit hard to achieve.”

Diego Gutierrez Zaldivar, CEO and co-founder of Rootstock Labs, said Botanix’s closure reflects another lesson: building a blockchain ecosystem is much harder than solving the technical problem.

CME chief executive says company plans to sue CFTC after perpetual futures approval

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CME chief executive says company plans to sue CFTC after perpetual futures approval

CME Chief Executive Terrence Duffy said the derivatives provider planned to sue the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) after it approved perpetual futures products earlier this month.

The CFTC’s approval of Kalshi’s perpetual futures product did not meet the requirements of the Dodd-Frank Act governing swaps, he told CNBC on Wednesday.

“Under the Dodd-Frank Act, it clearly defines what a swap is and what a future is, and when there’s two parties exchanging payments to each other, that’s deemed a swap,” he said. “So, if anything, these products that he supposedly approved as futures are not futures, they would be swaps, and if they’re swaps, and let’s say, as you know, there’s different requirements in order to participate in the swap market.”

Duffy, who is stepping down from his role next year, said CME would “need to understand what the rules of the road are first” before it would consider listing perpetual futures contracts of its own, but that those rules are not “very clear” at present.

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