The Winklevoss-backed Zcash treasury company reported $4.8 million in net income in 2025, driven by unrealized gains on its ZEC holdings.
Zcash (ZEC) surged as much as 20% on Monday evening, March 16 — spiking from $231 to as high as $284 — after ZEC digital asset treasury (DAT) firm Cypherpunk Technologies (Nasdaq: CYPH) released its full-year 2025 financial results showing a swing to profitability.
ZEC remains up roughly 9% on the day as of press time today, March 17, trading over $270, making it the top performer among the top-100 large-cap crypto assets, per CoinGecko data.
ZEC 7-day price chart. Source: CoinGecko
ZEC’s rally over the past 24 hours appears to be driven by Cypherpunk’s positive financials for 2025, which is the year the company rebranded from a biotech firm to a Zcash-focused DAT. Per the release, Cypherpunk reported net income of $4.8 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 2025, a dramatic reversal from a net loss of $67.8 million in 2024.
According to the firm, the turnaround was driven by $50.4 million in unrealized gains on the fair value of its ZEC treasury holdings, marked to market at period end, Dec. 31. At that time, ZEC was trading near $530 and those holdings were valued at $147.4 million on its balance sheet, according to the firm’s press release.
ZEC 1-year price chart. Source: CoinGecko
Shares of CYPH also rallied yesterday and today, and are currently up over 13% today at nearly $0.80, and up over 40% in the past five days, per Yahoo Finance data.
Biotech to DAT Pivot
Cypherpunk was launched in mid-November last year and is backed by Gemini founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and the firm is the only publicly traded focused on Zcash.
Like several other DATs that launched last year as the experimental strategy exploded into a trend, Cypherpunk pivoted to a DAT via a rebrand from an entirely different industry, namely biotech. The company’s biotech past as LeapTherapeutics still shows up in the books, and the release notes that R&D expenses for what is now the company’s subsidiary fell by more than half last year from the previous year, which also helped it achieve net income.
Buying High, Reporting Profitable
As The Defiant previously reported last month, ZEC had fallen more than 50% since Cypherpunk’s last disclosed purchase on Dec. 30, 2025, when the company added 56,418 ZEC at around $514 per token.
According to the release, total holdings now stand at 294,743.10 ZEC at an average purchase price of $335.89 per token — about 19% higher than current prices, meaning the treasury remains underwater on a cost basis.
Still, Monday’s move suggests markets read the first-ever profit report as a validation of the DAT model applied to ZEC.
ZEC was the top-performing large-cap crypto asset of the year, as The Defiant previously reported, having surged more than 800% over the course of 2025.
The privacy-focused cryptocurrency, which is the second-largest privacy coin by market cap after Monero (XMR), began its extended price rally in the fall, starting in early September. The timing coincided roughly with the Winklevoss’ investment into Leap.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.
Reflection AI is partnering with Seoul-based conglomerate Shinsegae Group to build a huge new AI data center in South Korea.
The companies revealed their intentions in a media statement on March 16, in which they confirmed they had signed a memorandum of understanding for the project.
The partners did not release financial details of the deal, although the investment is likely to run to several billion dollars. They also did not disclose the location.
However, the companies said the data center will consume up to 250 megawatts — roughly the same as a small city — while local media in South Korea reported Shinsegae billed it as the “largest AI-dedicated data center built by a single company” in the country.
Each party will bring its own expertise to the project. Reflection, founded in 2024 by two former Google Deep Mind researchers and based in New York City, will provide the technical know-how, including Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs), open weight foundation models and full-stack engineering. The AI chip giant was one of Reflection’s biggest backers when the startup raised $2 billion in October.
Related:Meta Spends Another $27B on AI Infrastructure With Nebius
Shinsegae, meanwhile, will take responsibility for the infrastructure, including site selection, physical architecture, power, permitting and financing. Korean media say the conglomerate — previously known for credit cards and department stores — is also likely to use the data center as a springboard into more AI business ventures with the ultimate vision of positioning itself as “Korea’s Amazon”
The agreement is notable for a number of other reasons. It’s a major step forward in the effort to provide South Korea with sovereign frontier AI capabilities built and operated in the country. This sovereign AI campaign was also recently boosted by Hyundai Motor Group’s commitment to spend $6.1 billion on an innovation hub for robotics and AI in the port city of Gunsan.
Also, by using Reflection’s open weight models — with which users can download and run them locally without needing access to code or training data — South Koreans will have visibility into the tech underpinning their critical systems. Reflection is said to be developing models customized for Korean language and culture.
“Every country is realizing that AI sovereignty is existential, which requires open models. We have a narrow window to ensure the foundation of intelligence remains open and accessible to all, rather than controlled by a few,” Misha Laskin, CEO of Reflection, posted on X.
There is also a geopolitical aspect to the deal, with the agreement demonstrating the potential of President Donald Trump’s AI export program, in which the U.S. administration aims to strengthen relationships with allies by promoting the export of American AI tech packages.
Related:Ford’s New AI Tool Offers In-Depth Insight Into Its CVs
The program is clearly designed to prevent Chinese dominance of the sector, and the media release for the Reflection-Shinsegae deal acknowledged: “The partnership reinforces a vital geostrategic alliance between the United States and a valued Indo-Pacific partner.”
Ethereum is one of the best-performing assets in March, analysts say.
Bitmine, BlackRock deepen their bets on the blockchain.
Bitmine buys indirect stake in OpenAI ahead of 2026 IPO.
Ethereum is surging, but the Federal Reserve risks puncturing the rally and altcoins will be worse off than Bitcoin if that happens, an analyst warns.
At the same time, the second biggest cryptocurrency’s outperformance of the S&P 500 hasn’t just seen Ethereum’s price rally some 25% in March, but may also signal that momentum is building for digital assets, argues Adam Saville Brown, head of commercial at crypto asset manager Tesseract Group.
“That kind of rotation into the second-largest asset suggests risk appetite is broadening, which tends to be a healthy sign,” he told DL News.
Ethereum’s surge coincides with Wall Street deepening its bets on the blockchain technology, despite the price still down over 50% from its August peak of $4,950.
To be sure, Brown cautions that the rally may be dented if the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signals any upcoming surprises to the central bank’s 2026 rate cutting plans. The US-Israeli conflict has already reduced the chances of a rate cut this week to less than 1%, down from 58% in December, according to the CMEFedWatch tool.
“If Powell strikes a cautious tone on inflation, altcoin gains will reverse faster than Bitcoin’s,” Brown said.“The honest assessment is that the [price]floor looks solid. The ceiling requires more than a rate hold to break through.”
Institutional buying
Even so, institutions are piling into Ethereum.
Bitmine has doubled down on the $280 billion cryptocurrency even as the industry has suffered a $2 trillion drawdown since October.
On Monday, the firm announced another $128 million purchase, bringing its total stash to over $10 billion.
“Since the start of the Iran war, crypto prices have outperformed and Ethereum has outperformed the S&P 500 by 24.5%,” chair Tom Lee said. “This is a meaningful outperformance in a mere two weeks.”
“In our view, higher oil is triggering concerns of slowing growth for the global economy. And when investors worry about growth, they buy ‘growth stocks’ including MAG7, software and crypto. As the chart below shows, crypto moves in tandem with software stocks,” he said.
The firm also disclosed that it acquired 5,000 Ether directly from the Ethereum Foundation through an over-the-counter transaction enabling the EF to fund its core operations.
“Bitmine acquired the Ether to demonstrate our support for the goals and operations of EF and enabled EF to raise capital without having to sell its ETH in the open market,” it said.
Bitmine is joined by the likes of BlackRock in its support for the 10-year-old blockchain network.
BlackRock’s new iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF debuted strongly on Thursday, immediately generating nearly $16m in trading volume after launching with $100m in assets. The launch highlights the asset manager’s growing bet that Ethereum will underpin the next wave of tokenised finance and institutional blockchain infrastructure.
“The institutional conviction story is intact,” said Jasper De Maere, an OTC trader at crypto market maker Wintermute. “What’s still unproven is whether this is structural accumulation or tactical buying at perceived support.”
Bitmine x OpenAI
Bitmine also announced it indirectly acquired equity in OpenAI.
The firm increased its investment in Eightco Holdings, known by the ticker ORBS, by another $80 million.
Eightco has used that capital to buy a $50 million equity stake in OpenAI and a $25 million stake in Beast Industries, the company behind YouTube creator MrBeast.
The deal makes ORBS the only publicly listed stock offering investors direct exposure to OpenAI ahead of its widely expected initial public offering in 2026.
Bitmine also said the investment could create links between Worldcoin’s proof-of-human system, OpenAI’s artificial intelligence platform and MrBeast’s global media reach.
Meanwhile, Eightco is bringing Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest on as a strategic adviser, a move aimed at boosting investor interest in ORBS.
Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email at lance@dlnews.com.
PawaPay, a leading pan-African payments aggregator, has officially partnered with the online trading platform Deriv to support mobile money deposits across multiple African markets.
The integration currently enables users in eight African countries to fund their trading accounts using their everyday mobile money wallets. The companies have also outlined strategic plans to expand this connectivity even further across the continent in the near future.
Deriv selected PawaPay to support its overarching African expansion strategy, seeking a solution that could deliver mobile money capabilities without sacrificing localization or reliability as transaction volumes grow. Through this partnership, Deriv users gain direct access to local payment methods via a single, compliant connection to major mobile operators.
For platforms operating across African markets, mobile money serves as a primary method for customer transactions. However, offering this payment option reliably requires extensive local operator connectivity, strict regulatory alignment, and the ability to manage payments consistently across diverse jurisdictions. PawaPay handles these complex operational details—including payment processing, settlement, foreign exchange, and reconciliation—allowing global platforms like Deriv to operate efficiently at scale.
Since the partnership went live, Deriv has reported a measurable increase in mobile money deposits across its active markets. Coordinated launch and education campaigns helped accelerate user adoption, while the underlying reliability of PawaPay’s integration resulted in fewer failed transactions and more predictable settlements. Furthermore, PawaPay provides hands-on support during periods of network instability to ensure technical issues are addressed before they can negatively impact end users.
Industry leaders weigh in on the expansion
Nikolai Barnwell, CEO at PawaPay
Nikolai Barnwell, CEO at PawaPay, highlighted the critical role of stable infrastructure in the region. He noted that while mobile money is already deeply embedded in how people transact across Africa, the real challenge for expanding companies is running these systems reliably as transaction volumes grow. Barnwell explained that PawaPay’s role is to keep payments predictable so that platforms like Deriv can focus entirely on their customers rather than getting bogged down in operational details.
Derek Swift, head of client funding facilities at Deriv
Derek Swift, head of client funding facilities at Deriv, echoed these sentiments, calling the partnership central to the trading platform’s expansion across Africa. Swift praised PawaPay’s platform for performing reliably in markets where payment infrastructure requires genuine local expertise. He also commended the responsiveness of the PawaPay team, stating that the collaboration has successfully opened up markets that were previously completely inaccessible to the trading firm.
PawaPay currently operates across 20 African markets, providing businesses with clear transaction statuses and comprehensive regulatory coverage. Deriv, which has been operating for 26 years, serves over three million traders worldwide and offers more than 300 assets across its platforms.
Sam Altman’s World has unveiled a new developer toolkit designed to help websites and online services verify that artificial intelligence agents are operating on behalf of real people rather than autonomous bot networks.
The toolkit, called AgentKit, launched today in beta and integrates World’s identity verification system with x402, an open protocol developed by Coinbase and Cloudflare. The technology allows AI agents to carry cryptographic proof that they represent a unique human while interacting with websites, application programming interfaces, and digital services.
The release targets a growing problem in AI commerce. As agents begin handling tasks such as booking services, comparing prices, and completing purchases, websites need ways to distinguish legitimate automated activity from spam, bot swarms, and abuse.
McKinsey estimates agentic commerce could generate $3 trillion to $5 trillion globally by 2030, while Bain has projected AI agents could account for as much as 25% of US ecommerce sales by the end of the decade.
Under the model, a verified user can delegate their World ID to an AI agent, enabling that agent to prove that a real, unique human backs it without exposing the person’s actual identity.
That gives websites a privacy-preserving signal they can use alongside payment checks to decide whether to grant access, allocate resources, or enforce one human one account style limits.
Coinbase and Cloudflare introduced the x402 Foundation last year to push x402 as an open standard for internet native payments, especially for AI agents paying for content, APIs, and digital services. Coinbase describes x402 as a protocol that enables stablecoin payments directly over standard web requests, effectively turning payment into a native part of internet traffic.
World’s pitch is that payments alone do not prove uniqueness. A single operator could still run thousands of fee-paying agents, which means micropayments can limit spam but not verify how many real people are behind the activity.
By attaching proof of unique human to x402-compatible requests, AgentKit gives developers a second trust signal that could make AI agents more acceptable to websites that currently block most automated traffic by default.
The launch also plugs into a broader effort across tech and commerce platforms to prepare for AI-driven transactions. World says its network now spans nearly 18 million verified humans in more than 160 countries. That gives it a sizable installed base for developers who want identity checks without collecting full personal data.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
For much of the last three years, a predictable cycle dominated the market: companies announced their intentions to purchase massive volumes of Bitcoin, watched their stock prices soar to a premium and issued new shares to buy more Bitcoin. This feedback loop made Bitcoin accumulation look like an “infinite money glitch”: a guaranteed way for public companies to manufacture shareholder value out of thin air.
As we move through the first quarter of 2026, that cycle has broken. Recent data shows that roughly 40% of publicly traded Bitcoin treasuries are now trading at a discount to their net asset value (NAV). In plain terms, the market now values these companies as a liability, worth less than the market price of the Bitcoin they hold.
This collapse in valuation has invited blistering criticism from institutional veterans. Jan van Eck, CEO of VanEck, recently dismissed the sector as a publicity-driven trend, while veteran analyst Herb Greenberg has characterized the most prominent player, Strategy, as a “quasi-Ponzi scheme.”
These critiques point to a failure in how many of these firms are managed. To remain viable, Bitcoin treasury companies must accept that accretive dilution is no longer a sustainable strategy. They must move beyond holding passively and operate as disciplined asset managers.
Competing philosophies: the promoter vs. the asset manager
Today, most Bitcoin treasury companies are divided into two camps, representing fundamentally different philosophies of corporate management: “Promoters” and “Asset Managers.”
Promoters treat Bitcoin as a passive asset to be hoarded. In this model, the company’s primary job is two-fold. First, the firm must act as an aggressive advocate for the underlying currency and its ecosystem. By investing in community projects and maintaining a constant presence in public discourse, the Promoter works to drive the token price higher and capitalize on gains from its existing holdings. Second, the Promoter must market its own stock to maintain a high premium. When the market values the company significantly higher than the Bitcoin it actually holds, the company can sell new shares at that inflated price to buy more Bitcoin at the normal market rate. This calculated financial maneuver is called accretive dilution.
Together, these strategies create a feedback loop of hype. The Promoter needs the price of Bitcoin to rise to increase its net asset value, and it needs the equity premium to be maintained to continue its accumulation strategy. However, this model is fragile because it relies entirely on external sentiment. If the price of BTC stalls or the equity premium vanishes — as we are seeing across the board in 2026 — the Promoter is left with an unproductive balance sheet and no internal mechanism for growth.
In contrast, asset managers view Bitcoin as a productive commodity akin to “digital oil.” In the physical world, an oil major like Exxon or Shell does not simply sit on reserves and hope for a price rally. They are sophisticated financial operators who treat their inventory as a productive asset. They trade the futures curve to capture premiums and monetize market volatility.
Asset Manager-style treasuries apply this same industrial rigor to the digital realm. By using their balance sheet to generate real, Bitcoin-denominated returns, they ensure growth is driven by operational skill, rather than a byproduct of crypto market sentiment. By treating Bitcoin as a commodity to be managed, the asset manager generates real yield from the skilled management of the asset, not from the continuous issuance of new stock to the public.
The era of accretive dilution is over
The distinction between these two models is no longer academic. One of them has stopped working.
The Promoter approach — relying on equity issuance to finance Bitcoin accumulation — is no longer a viable growth strategy. What once passed as financial sophistication was, in practice, a tactic that depended on unusually favorable market conditions.
Issuing shares at a premium can temporarily increase Bitcoin per share, but it does not create an economic return. It generates no cash flow, no operational advantage and no durable compounding mechanism. It exists entirely at the discretion of new investors. When that demand weakens, the strategy collapses.
For much of 2025, this reality was easy to ignore. Rising Bitcoin prices and abundant liquidity made accumulation strategies look interchangeable. Capital flowed freely, equity premiums expanded, and dozens of treasury companies adopted the same playbook: buy Bitcoin, promote the narrative, raise more equity, repeat. In that environment, differentiation didn’t matter.
It does now.
As the market matures, Bitcoin treasuries that rely solely on passive accumulation face a hard constraint: they lack an internal mechanism for growth. When every firm owns the same asset, holds it the same way and depends on the same equity-market dynamics, there is no basis for sustained outperformance. The model has become commoditized — and investors are growing sick of it.
Only the most prominent players — those with exceptional scale, brand recognition, and Michael Saylor-level fame — will be able to sustain this approach. For most treasury companies, passive accumulation without active management offers no path to differentiation, resilience, or long-term relevance.
Markets are already reflecting this reality. Nearly half of Bitcoin treasury companies have fallen below mNAV, and most won’t recover without a drastic pivot.
Transitioning from passive storage to active management
To transition from a promoter to an asset manager, companies must move beyond the simple HODL strategy and put the balance sheet to work. This means adopting the tools of professional commodity trading.
One primary tool is the basis trade, in which a firm exploits the price difference between the spot price of Bitcoin and the futures contract price. By capturing this spread, a company can grow its Bitcoin holdings even when the asset’s price is flat or declining. Furthermore, a Bitcoin asset manager uses dynamic options strategies to turn market turbulence into income.
This approach provides a “real yield” that does not rely on selling more stock or finding new investors. It transforms the treasury from a cost center into a profit center. Most importantly, it provides a clear path to increasing Bitcoin-per-share through operational excellence rather than capital market maneuvers.
Treasury companies also need to adjust the way they communicate with investors. Too many treasury CEOs posture as low-budget Michael Saylor impersonators — focusing on narrative amplification, public advocacy and symbolic accumulation. It’s an approach designed to generate hype, not project careful financial stewardship.
As investor scrutiny intensifies, CEOs will need to project credibility by explaining how risk is managed, how exposure is structured, and how returns are generated across a range of market conditions. The market will not reward Bitcoin’s loudest cheerleaders; it will reward the firms that deploy their holdings most productively.
Careers in fintech are often defined by what systems allow, rather than what founders set out to build. Work that begins with consumer products can quickly become about payments rails, licensing and the practical limits set by regulation.
In this week’s In Profile, Cumbuca co-founder and CEO Daniel Ruhman talks about his route into fintech, his experience operating in Brazil’s payments market, and how infrastructure and regulation affect day-to-day decisions for fintech companies.
Tell us more about your company and its purpose
Daniel Ruhman, co-founder and CEO, Cumbuca
Cumbuca helps financial services companies operate in Brazil without spending years obtaining their own payments licence or handing over control to restrictive third-party providers.
Basically, we act as a proxy into Brazil’s regulated ecosystem. Companies use our licence to connect directly to infrastructure such as Pix and open finance, but they still build and own their own systems. We handle the regulatory and compliance side of things; their tech, their data, and their operational decisions stay with them.
We built it because companies shouldn’t have to choose between speed and control. Right now, that trade-off exists, and we’re removing it.
What are some of your recent achievements you’d like to highlight?
One highlight this year was our contribution to the Pix Anniversary Report, launched with W Fintechs to mark five years since Pix started. It was fascinating to step back and look at how something that began as a new payment method has become part of Brazil’s core financial infrastructure.
The report digs into adoption numbers, system design, and why other countries are starting to pay attention to Brazil’s open finance approach. It’s a great reminder of how far the ecosystem has come and how much local expertise has developed around real-time payments and regulatory infrastructure.
For us, a lot of the work this year has been about building quietly but steadily; ensuring the platform is reliable, keeping it aligned with evolving regulations, and helping international teams get up to speed on Pix and open finance. It’s not flashy work, but it’s the kind of foundation that lets everything else run smoothly, and it’s what allows us to support new entrants without them getting stuck on infrastructure or compliance issues.
Beyond those already mentioned, it’s worth noting that we successfully pivoted the business and reached profitability, hitting breakeven within just three months. Furthermore, we successfully brought the operations of India’s largest payment orchestrator to Brazil, and we will be releasing a formal case study on that partnership shortly.
Finally, we recently presented our unique operating model to the Central Bank of Brazil (BACEN), where it was exceptionally well-received.
How did you get into the fintech industry?
I’ve been building things on the internet for as long as I can remember. I released my first iPhone app at fourteen and was pretty much hooked on software from there.
Fintech came later, mostly through the products we were building. Once you start working on anything involving money movement, you quickly realise the end-user experience is shaped far more by infrastructure and regulation than the application itself.
Over time, I became more interested in the underlying layer than in the apps sitting on top, which eventually led to Cumbuca.
What’s the best thing about working in the fintech industry?
The scale of impact.
When infrastructure improves, the effects are immediate and visible. Systems like Pix changed how millions of people and businesses move money in a pretty short timeframe. Being close to that kind of change is rare.
What frustrates you most about the fintech industry?
Probably incentives that reward slowness.
In complex financial systems, the primary reason delays exist is because someone somewhere is benefiting from money being in transit. Once you’ve seen instant settlement work at scale, it’s obvious that most of that friction isn’t technical; it’s structural.
How have your previous roles influenced your career?
Everything we’ve done before feeds directly into how we think about Cumbuca.
We built consumer fintech products and relied heavily on infrastructure providers we didn’t control. When something failed or data wasn’t available, our customers felt it, and there was very little we could do. It’s a frustrating position.
At the same time, we went through the full licensing process ourselves, which showed us how slow, expensive and risky that path is. Cumbuca exists somewhere between those two experiences.
What’s the best mistake you’ve ever made?
Our ‘best mistake’ was definitely launching our first venture, UmHelp. We were a platform for cleaning services – essentially an ‘Uber for cleaners’. While the market opportunity seemed massive on paper, the sector itself was brutal: there was no deep ‘pain point,’ margins were razor-thin, and the model was incredibly capital-intensive.
At the time, our investors warned us it was a tough bet, but they backed us because they believed in us as founders. Had we not started UmHelp, we never would have gone through Y Combinator or eventually built Cumbuca. Those investors stayed with us through numerous pivots, and we felt a deep responsibility to honor their original trust. By maintaining the same cap table, we were able to turn that early struggle into a success, ultimately providing all of them with a profitable exit opportunity.
What has the future got in store for your company?
Cumbuca is focused on continuing to make it easier for companies to operate in Brazil whilst staying fully aligned with regulation. There are still loads of international firms that want to build there but struggle with the time and complexity involved in obtaining a licence.
We’re also expanding our support around Open Finance and payment initiation, because those systems are evolving quickly and keeping up with them requires constant work.
What are the next key talking points or challenges for your industry as a whole?
One of the biggest shifts happening is that fintech markets – particularly in Brazil – are maturing. Regulation is tightening, capital requirements are higher, and operating sustainably is becoming more important than just moving fast. That’ll likely drive consolidation, but it’s also a sign the ecosystem’s becoming more stable.
At the same time, the margins in payments will keep shrinking because instant payment systems change the economics of moving money, and over time, payments will look more like a utility. The real value will increasingly be in what surrounds the transaction, not the transaction itself.
I also think we’re getting to the point where AI and payments start intersecting in a meaningful way. As systems move from assisting users to acting on their behalf, an open and programmable payment infrastructure becomes essential. Markets that already have those foundations will likely move first.
Vietnam is preparing to restrict access to overseas cryptocurrency platforms as regulators push forward with a plan to launch the country’s first licensed digital asset exchanges, according to a government document reviewed by Reuters.
The Ministry of Finance is drafting rules that would prohibit Vietnamese citizens from trading on foreign exchanges such as Binance, OKX, and Bybit. The move aligns with a five-year pilot program designed to bring crypto trading under domestic supervision while limiting capital outflows.
The policy shift comes as Vietnam ranks among the most active cryptocurrency markets globally. Data from Chainalysis shows Vietnamese users transacted more than $200 billion in digital assets in the 12 months through June 2025, placing the country fourth on its global adoption index. Crypto usage in Vietnam spans remittances, savings, and gaming, reflecting integration into daily financial activity.
Under the proposed framework, only locally licensed platforms would be permitted to operate, requiring users to migrate away from international exchanges.
Authorities say the approach aims to strengthen oversight, reduce fraud risks, and retain transaction-related revenue within the domestic economy.
A Vietnamese crypto licensing arms race begins
At least five firms have passed an initial qualification round for exchange licenses, including affiliates of Techcombank, VPBank, and LPBank, along with VIX Securities and Sun Group.
The licensing regime sets a high bar for entry. Applicants must meet a minimum charter capital requirement of 10 trillion Vietnamese dong, or roughly $400 million, and comply with strict standards covering governance, cybersecurity, and anti-money laundering controls. Foreign ownership is capped at 49%, signaling a preference for domestic control over key market infrastructure.
The effort builds on a legal shift that began in 2025, when Vietnam’s National Assembly recognized crypto assets as property under the Law on Digital Technology Industry. While cryptocurrencies remain non-legal tender, the change established a foundation for regulated market development.
Officials and industry representatives say restricting offshore trading could redirect liquidity toward domestic platforms, though it may limit access to global markets.
Authorities are also considering a tax framework that could include a levy on crypto transactions conducted through licensed exchanges. Details remain under review as regulators finalize the structure of the pilot program.
The first licensed exchanges could launch as early as March 2026. The outcome of the pilot is expected to shape Vietnam’s long-term approach to digital asset regulation and position the country within the broader Southeast Asian crypto market.
GSR has acquired Autonomous and Architech in a $57 million deal, according to a company announcement, as the crypto trading firm expands its push to become a full-stack capital markets provider for tokenized organizations.
The acquisition integrates Autonomous’s launch and operational support platform with Architech’s advisory capabilities, forming a unified offering that spans token design, fundraising, liquidity, and long-term treasury management.
Autonomous will continue operating under its existing brand, while Architech will anchor a new GSR Digital Asset Advisory division alongside GSR’s trading and asset management businesses.
The move comes as tokenized networks increasingly resemble traditional companies with complex balance sheets, yet often lack the financial infrastructure to manage them. Many crypto foundations control large treasuries from day one, typically concentrated in their native tokens, exposing them to volatility and capital inefficiencies.
GSR’s integrated model aims to replace what has historically been a fragmented ecosystem of token economists, market makers, and advisory firms. Instead of separate mandates, the firm is offering coordinated services across governance design, token economics, exchange strategy, and capital planning, while providing execution through its institutional trading and derivatives platform.
The strategy aligns with a broader shift across crypto markets toward institutional-grade infrastructure. Firms such as Galaxy, Wintermute, and Cumberland have been expanding beyond trading into advisory, treasury management, and structured products as digital asset markets mature and attract more sophisticated capital.
GSR said the platform will focus heavily on treasury optimization, including liquidity planning, risk management, and capital allocation strategies. The goal is to move crypto foundations away from passive token holdings toward diversified and actively managed balance sheets that can sustain long-term growth without relying on continuous token issuance.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Robinhood Ventures Fund I said on Tuesday, it has invested about $34.58 million in Stripe and Elevenlabs, expanding retail investor access to private technology companies. NYSE-Traded Robinhood Fund Invests in Stripe, Elevenlabs for Retail Access Robinhood Ventures Fund I stated on March 17 that it deployed about $34.58 million across Stripe and Elevenlabs, expanding its […]
