One story from each region, picked by what mattered most there, not by what America read. 7 regions this week, plus 26 more stories inside them. Pick a region to see everything from it.
Draft for review: stories outside Asia are checked but not yet approved.
The US Justice Department said on Thursday 12 November that it has court approval to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion of the crypto stolen from Binance, The Block, Decrypt and Unchained reported. The department attributes the theft of more than $6 billion, on or about 29 October, to North Korean military hackers the FBI calls TraderTraitor, The Block and Unchained reported. The $1.2 billion is part of more than $2.7 billion frozen so far by US authorities and private companies, the department said, according to The Block.
Speaking at the ABRACAM Speech 2026 – Câmbio Cripto event on Tuesday 10 November, the central bank's director of supervision, Ailton Aquino, said about 30% of the crypto firms that applied for authorisation did not have the share capital its rules require, Livecoins reported. He also said many applicants had not sent the audited financial statements the regulation asks for, Livecoins and PANews reported. PANews, citing Bitcoin.com, said nearly a third of the 120 virtual asset service providers that applied by the 30 October deadline fell short of the capital rule and may be rejected after review, and quoted Aquino as saying at least 30% of exchanges did not meet it.
Deutsche Bank said on Wednesday 11 November that its Digital Asset Custody service is live for institutional and corporate clients in Europe, The Block, Decrypt and Cointelegraph reported; Decrypt, and BTC-ECHO, Cryptoast and Crypto Insiders citing Reuters, said it is open to paying clients. The bank holds clients' bitcoin, ether and the stablecoins USDC, EURC and EURAU, manages their wallets and private keys and makes transfers to other parties for them, The Block and Crypto Insiders reported. The same day it signed a memorandum of understanding with Deutsche Asset Management, its majority-owned asset manager formerly known as DWS, to explore tokenised money market funds, crypto exchange-traded commodities and stablecoins, The Block and Decrypt reported.
Israel's Discount Bank will let individual customers buy, hold and sell bitcoin and ether directly in its banking app from 26 November, without opening a separate digital wallet or an overseas exchange account, PANews reported, citing the bank's website; ChainCatcher reported the same. The service is open only to Israeli residents aged 18 or over who have a securities account, both outlets reported.
Unocoin reported unauthorised access to its servers on 9 November and paused user logins, PANews reported, citing Onchain Lens. Unocoin denied that all funds had been stolen and said no user funds were lost, PANews reported on 12 November; on X it later said 3 of its more than 20 operational hot wallets were compromised, with an estimated loss of about $200,000 that it will cover in full from its own funds without reducing user balances, PANews reported.
South Korea's Financial Services Commission (FSC) held a security meeting for the crypto industry on 12 November, chaired by Vice Chairman Shin Jin-chang, and said it will issue a no-action letter so exchanges can block deposits and withdrawals pre-emptively when they suspect a hack, under certain conditions, Digital Asset, CoinPost and Unchained reported; Cointelegraph also reported the no-action letter. The current Virtual Asset User Protection Act allows a block only once a hack has clearly occurred, the outlets reported. An emergency guideline from the meeting asks exchanges to monitor around the clock; one that cannot should process deposits and withdrawals only in the hours its monitoring works and tell users in advance, Digital Asset and Unchained reported.
Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission opened a public consultation on 12 November on draft rules that would cap each customer's stablecoin deposits, and separately their withdrawals, at 5 million baht a day at each licensed digital asset operator, Kaohoon, CoinPost and The Block reported. Stablecoins could only move to and from accounts or wallets verified as the customer's own; transfers from or to other people's wallets would be barred, Kaohoon and The Block reported. Comments are open until 26 November, Kaohoon reported.