Autor Cointelegraph By Ezra Reguerra

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has given digital asset businesses another three months to apply for licenses required under its updated regulatory guidance.Australia’s financial regulator said that the temporary protection from enforcement would remain in place until Sept. 30, pushed from the previous June 30 deadline.The extension applies to businesses seeking an Australian Financial Services (AFS) license, as well as companies that may require market or clearing and settlement authorizations.ASIC also expanded the no-action relief to cover digital asset businesses operating through authorized representatives or intermediary arrangements with licensed firms, widening the pool of companies eligible for the transition period. The regulator said it has received about 30 license applications since updating its digital asset guidance in October 2025.Source: ASICAustralia’s crypto licensing transition takes shapeASIC previously introduced the no-action position after updating its Information Sheet 225 (INFO 225) guidance to clarify how existing financial services laws apply to digital assets. The guidance states that many digital asset products are financial products under existing law, meaning many providers require an AFS licence.That approach rests on ASIC’s view that Australia’s definitions of financial products are broad and technology-neutral. The regulator said its interpretation was recently reinforced by the High Court’s Block Earner ruling, which found that the company’s former crypto yield product was a financial product under the Corporations Act.Related: Coinbase plans expansion to stock trading in Australia after securing licenseThe temporary relief is separate from Australia’s Digital Asset Framework, which passed Parliament in April and is scheduled to commence on April 9, 2027.The law will bring digital asset platforms and tokenized custody platforms under Australia’s financial services licensing regime. ASIC has warned that some firms licensed under the current guidance may need additional authorizations once the new framework takes effect. “Many digital asset firms that apply for a licence based on INFO 225 will also need to add DAP and TCP authorisations to their licence once that regime commences,” ASIC said in a May announcement. Magazine: AI is banking the unbanked in Africa… faster than cryptoCointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Non-fungible token (NFT) project Pudgy Penguins is winding down its mobile game Pudgy Party and halting further development.In an X post, the team said on Saturday that it would shift its gaming resources toward Pudgy World, a browser-based experience which it described as the flagship gaming product for the Pudgy Penguins ecosystem. “We’ve made the difficult decision to wind down Pudgy Party and halt further development,” the team wrote, adding that Pudgy World offered greater potential for scalability and introducing new users to the Pudgy Penguins brand. The mobile game launched in August 2025 and surpassed 500,000 downloads on Google Play alone. Pudgy Party said total downloads have exceeded 1 million.Pudgy Penguins is consolidating its gaming ambitions around a single flagship product as the project expands beyond NFTs through initiatives spanning toys, gaming, licensing and entertainment.Total NFT market capitalization climbed to nearly $1.5 billion on Monday from more than $1.3 billion on Friday, according to CoinGecko, but remains far below its 2022 peak of over $17 billion.7-day NFT market capitalization data. Source: CoinGeckoCrypto games struggle to find sustainable business models Pudgy Party’s wind-down comes as another Web3 gaming project, Fishing Frenzy, and its developer, Uncharted, announced they would cease operations after failing to establish a viable crypto-gaming model.“Despite our best efforts, we were ultimately unable to prove our thesis on crypto gaming and could not find product-market-business fit,” Fishing Frenzy said in an X post on Monday.The team said the company had spent the last year testing approaches and different audiences, but had not found a path that inspired the confidence to continue. Related: Binance to end NFT support on exchange, shift service to walletFishing Frenzy will shut down its servers on June 25 at 2:00 am UTC. The project has stopped selling USDC packages and made its FISH token spend-only and untradable.The team said that the USDC remaining in the FISH/USDC liquidity pool would be redistributed to community members and stakers. Magazine: Does ‘Paper Bitcoin’ mean there’s an unlimited supply of BTC?

Standard Chartered expects assets locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) to grow 37-fold to $2.7 trillion by the end of 2030.The expansion would be driven by both tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) and crypto-native assets moving through onchain protocols, Geoff Kendrick, head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, said in a research note on Monday. “I think the next opportunity for generational wealth in digital assets is going to come via the DeFi protocols,” Kendrick said. “I estimate that the amount of tokenized assets active in DeFi will 37x by the end of 2030.”According to Kendrick, only 3% of stablecoins and 10% of tokenized RWAs are currently used in DeFi. He projected the share of tokenized assets used in DeFi to rise to 30% by the end of 2030, from about 3.5% today.The forecast underscores growing institutional expectations that tokenization could channel more capital into DeFi. However, reaching $2.7 trillion would require onchain assets to grow rapidly and the share of tokenized value used in DeFi protocols to rise nearly ninefold.Decentralized finance’s total value locked. Source: DefiLlamaStandard Chartered previously forecast that non-stablecoin tokenized RWAs would grow to $2 trillion by the end of 2028, with tokenized money-market funds and US equities accounting for most of the projected market.While Standard Chartered expects tokenized assets to drive significantly more activity into DeFi, some researchers have cautioned that tokenization does not guarantee deep or unified markets. Axis CEO Chris Kim previously told Cointelegraph that issuing the same asset across multiple blockchains and formats can create siloed liquidity, pricing gaps and higher costs, limiting how easily tokenized assets can be traded even as their overall market value grows.Oya Celiktemur, Ondo Finance’s sales director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, also said at Paris Blockchain Week in April that tokenizing an illiquid asset does not “magically” make it liquid. Uniswap seen as a potential hub for tokenized marketsKendrick said Uniswap could emerge as a key trading venue as more tokenized assets move onchain. He highlighted the decentralized exchange’s scale, brand and history of operating through multiple crypto cycles. Related: Botanix to shut down after 4 years, cites weak demand for Bitcoin DeFiKendrick added that those attributes could be particularly important to traditional financial institutions, which are likely to prioritize security and reliability when bringing tokenized RWAs to DeFi. “If Uniswap can commercialise enough and create significant enough TradFi partnerships to scale, its market cap-to transaction fees multiple is likely to increase, narrowing the gap with Coinbase,” he wrote. Magazine: Does ‘Paper Bitcoin’ mean there’s an unlimited supply of BTC?

Metaplanet announced on Friday that it has agreed to acquire Siiibo Securities in a 2.1 billion yen ($13.1 million) deal to form a securities arm. The Tokyo-listed Bitcoin (BTC) treasury company said it entered into a share transfer agreement to acquire 100% of the Japanese securities company, a licensed financial instruments business operator. After closing, expected in July, Siiibo Securities will become a wholly owned subsidiary and be renamed Metaplanet Securities.Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich said the acquisition is the first step in Project Nova, the company’s strategy to build a Bitcoin-centric financial ecosystem in Japan. “We will develop and distribute Bitcoin-related yield products directly to Japanese investors, supported by the 40,177 BTC on our balance sheet,” he wrote. The company said Siiibo’s licensing, corporate bond platform and customer base would allow Metaplanet to develop income-oriented products like BTC-linked bonds, while giving it direct access to investors seeking yield in Japan. Metaplanet’s Bitcoin stash has a net asset value of 457.6 billion yen (about $2.8 billion), making it the largest publicly listed BTC holder in Japan and the third-largest in the world, according to data tracker Bitcoin Treasuries.Metaplanet’s Bitcoin treasury holdings. Source: Bitcoin TreasuriesJapanese firms prepare for crypto’s move into finance Metaplanet’s securities push adds it to a growing list of Japanese financial and crypto firms positioning themselves ahead of a regulatory shift that could bring digital assets closer to the country’s traditional financial markets.Japan’s Lower House reportedly passed a bill on Thursday that would bring crypto assets under the country’s financial instruments framework, potentially opening a path to crypto exchange-traded funds and more favorable tax treatment for digital assets.Related: Japan approves bill to classify crypto as financial instrumentsJapan’s market infrastructure firms are also testing how digital assets could fit into existing capital markets. In April, the Japan Securities Clearing Corporation, part of Japan Exchange Group, said it would launch a proof of concept with Mizuho, Nomura and Digital Asset to test the use of Japanese government bonds as digital collateral on the Canton Network.SBI Shinsei Bank is reportedly preparing a deposit-linked crypto rewards service that would allow customers to receive vouchers redeemable for Bitcoin, Ether or XRP through SBI VC Trade. SBI’s broader group has also been expanding across crypto exchange services, stablecoin lending and planned securities products, including investment trusts and ETFs tied to crypto assets.Magazine: Does ‘Paper Bitcoin’ mean there’s an unlimited supply of BTC?forming a securities arm as the Bitcoin (BTC) treasury company expands into financial products tied to its crypto holdings

TRM Labs warned that crypto scammers are targeting FIFA World Cup fans through fake ticketing sites, fixed-match betting schemes and event-themed crypto promotions. The blockchain intelligence company said it identified several World Cup-related scam operations, including two fake-ticketing sites and one fixed-match betting pitch tied to four crypto addresses.“Criminals always look to exploit major events and cultural moments and they don’t wait until kickoff,” Ari Redbord, global head of policy at TRM Labs, told Cointelegraph. “Scammers build and position their infrastructure weeks in advance, then scale it the moment public attention peaks.”Redbord told Cointelegraph that the onchain nature of crypto payments allows investigators and compliance teams to act before losses grow.The 2026 World Cup opened on Thursday, with FIFA expecting attendance of about 6.5 million fans throughout the tournament and about $40.9 billion in global gross domestic product impact, creating a large pool of ticketing, travel and betting demand for scammers to target.Impact propagation of the World Cup 2026. Source: FIFAFIFA and FBI warn World Cup fans of fake ticket scamsThe World Cup is being held in Canada, Mexico and the US and is expected to drive a surge in ticketing, travel and betting activity.That concentration of demand has already drawn warnings from authorities. In May, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said threat actors were spoofing FIFA websites ahead of the tournament to collect personal information, sell fake tickets and products and potentially carry out other malicious activity.FBI warns of fake domains spoofing the official FIFA website. Source: FBIFIFA has also warned fans that tickets purchased outside the official website may expose buyers to fraud. FIFA said tickets obtained through unofficial channels may be deemed invalid and subject to cancellation without notice.Related: International sting shuts down $390M crypto money-laundering ringWorld Cup organizers face a more complicated ticketing environment. The Council on Foreign Relations reported that several opening matches in the US and Canada were not sold out on FIFA’s platform as of Monday, while the Financial Times reported on Tuesday that official resale portals still had 176,000 unsold tickets across the group stages of the tournament.Magazine: Korea’s first memecoin rug-pull case, China’s crypto rules review: Asia Express