Five companies, including bank affiliates and a major conglomerate, are competing for Vietnam’s first crypto exchange licences as authorities plan to restrict offshore trading. Five Vietnamese companies are reportedly competing to launch the country’s first licensed crypto exchanges as authorities move to bring trading onshore and ban overseas platforms. Five companies have passed an initial qualification round, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing a March 12 finance ministry document. The group reportedly includes affiliates of private banks Techcombank, VPBank and LPBank, alongside stockbroker VIX Securities and conglomerate Sun Group. VPBank and Sun Group reportedly confirmed their licence applications to Reuters. Vietnam opened applications for licenses to operate crypto exchanges in January. The move came after new procedures issued by the finance ministry and a law that, for the first time, defines crypto assets as property while still banning their use as legal tender or for payments. Read more
Decentralized compute fails without cryptographic verification. Today's networks decentralize GPUs but centralize trust. Opinion by: Leo Fan, founder of Cysic Decentralized compute has failed. Not because it can't find you a cheap GPU; it's actually quite good at that. The problem is that every major network today still forces you to trust the node operator with your data and results. We have replaced Amazon's login page with a wallet connection and called it Web3. Read more
Cari Network is building a bank‑governed tokenized deposit platform on ZKsync’s Prividium stack, giving US regional lenders a stablecoin‑style, onchain payments rail. Cari Network, a permissioned network for banks led by former United States Comptroller of the Currency Gene Ludwig, has chosen Matter Labs’ Prividium infrastructure to power a bank-governed tokenized deposit network for US regional and mid-sized lenders. Built on ZKsync and anchored to Ethereum, the platform is designed to let participating banks issue and move tokenized deposits around the clock while keeping them on the balance sheet as bank liabilities, according to a Tuesday release shared with Cointelegraph. The move comes as lawmakers debate frameworks such as the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act and as stablecoin issuers encroach on banks’ role in payments and deposit funding. Read more
A Buenos Aires court instructed Argentina's telecom agency ENACOM to block Polymarket nationwide, citing unauthorized gambling concerns. A court in Argentina has ordered a nationwide block of the major crypto-based prediction market platform Polymarket over unauthorized gambling. Argentina’s national communications and media regulator, Ente Nacional de Comunicaciones (ENACOM), received a court order to block access to the Polymarket website and its variants across the country, according to a ruling dated March 11. The order was issued by the Buenos Aires Court of First Instance in Criminal, Contravention and Minor Offenses No. 31, which is investigating Polymarket under Argentina’s Criminal Code for allegedly offering gambling services without authorization. Read more
Bitcoin bulls failed to break through major resistance at six-week highs as open interest trends triggered warnings of a BTC price reversal. Bitcoin (BTC) risks turning its rebound into a classic “bull trap” as the price rejects at strong resistance. Key points: Bitcoin faces flat Coinbase spot demand and an open interest divergence as prices rise above $75,000. Read more