Japan Megabanks Plan Yen Stablecoin as Hackers Drain $36M, XRPL Fees Below $400

Crypto News

Canadian explorer BTU Metals has widened its gold footprint in Ontario’s Red Lake district, securing a 100% interest in the Dixie East Block 3 project and extending its Dixie East corridor to roughly 17 kilometres. The company agreed to pay 800,000 common shares, 16,000 dollars in cash and a 1.5% net smelter return royalty, while retaining the right to buy back 0.5% of that royalty for 500,000 dollars. The ground sits about six kilometres east of Kinross Gold’s Great Bear project and borders BTU’s Dixie Halo claims, adding six new claims to an area the company describes as early-stage and largely unexplored ahead of summer fieldwork.

Activity metrics on the XRP Ledger drew fresh scrutiny after daily network fees slipped below 400 dollars, with weekly fee burn totaling only about 3,100 dollars. On-chain data shows the figure does not signal any halt in settlement; the ledger was built around ultra-low transaction costs, so modest fee revenue is partly by design. Yet because aggregate fees serve as a proxy for paid demand, the reading reopened questions about how much high-value throughput the network is capturing. With XRP’s narrative still tied to payments, liquidity and enterprise settlement, observers are watching whether transaction counts and active addresses on the blockchain confirm the same softening trend.

South Korea’s stablecoin debate has shifted from issuance to circulation, with policymakers warning that dollar-pegged USDT and USDC already dominate domestic on-chain payments while won-based tokens remain negligible across exchanges and DeFi venues. Lawmakers are advancing a Digital Asset Basic Act that would give priority to consortiums in which a bank holds 50% plus one share, a compromise reflecting the central bank’s stability concerns. The emerging groups look less like issuers than distribution alliances: Hana Financial paid roughly 1 trillion won for a stake in Upbit operator Dunamu, while KB, Shinhan, Woori and NongHyup court partners across exchanges and platforms. The unresolved risk is a won token that is issued but never used.

Arcadia Biosciences closed a previously announced private placement, raising about 4 million dollars in gross proceeds. The Nasdaq-listed agricultural technology firm priced the deal at market under exchange rules, selling 3,883,496 common shares or pre-funded warrants at 1.03 dollars apiece, paired with Series A-1 and A-2 investment options exercisable at 0.91 dollars. H.C. Wainwright acted as sole placement agent. The company said it will direct net proceeds toward working capital and general corporate purposes, while cautioning in its annual report that further capital may be required and that additional equity or debt raises could dilute existing shareholders. The securities were issued unregistered, with a resale registration to follow.

A North Korea-linked threat actor is suspected in the theft of roughly 36 million dollars in tokens from Humanity Protocol, according to a blockchain security firm’s incident report. The attack reportedly began with a phishing email disguised as a notice about a Korean exchange’s token lock-up schedule; a malicious attachment installed malware on a staff laptop, letting attackers copy a director’s MetaMask private key. Investigators flagged a forged Korean digital certificate as a hallmark of state-aligned intrusions. Storing keys in a cold wallet and isolating signing devices remain core defenses, as one security review attributes about 2 billion dollars of this year’s 3.4 billion dollars in exploit losses to North Korea.

Japan’s three largest banks are moving to jointly issue a yen-pegged stablecoin, in what would rank among Asia’s biggest institutional digital-currency efforts. MUFG Bank, Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation have formed a formal working body targeting issuance by March 2027, using a trust structure backed 100% by cash and Japanese government bonds to satisfy par-value redemption and asset-segregation rules. The plan builds on Japan’s revised Payment Services Act, which limits issuance to banks, trust firms and registered transfer agents. With combined assets near 7 trillion dollars, the lenders aim to compete on trust and scale against existing yen tokens such as JPYC and dollar-pegged incumbents.

Taken together, these threads point to one arc: stablecoins and tokenized finance are hardening into core payment rails, and the contest is now over who controls them and how safely. COINOTAG’s aggregate market data underscores the cautious backdrop, with the Fear and Greed Index at 18 in extreme fear, Bitcoin dominance at 70.5% and total crypto market capitalization near 1.83 trillion dollars. As Japanese and Korean banks race to anchor sovereign-currency tokens and exchanges expand into tokenized equities, the Humanity Protocol breach is a reminder that operational security, not protocol design, remains the weak link. Capital is consolidating into Bitcoin even as a bear-market mood keeps risk appetite subdued.