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Chia Network (XCH), which uses a novel consensus mechanism for running its blockchain, has made progress toward getting its stock trading through an initial public offering, its CEO said Thursday.

The company confidentially filed an amended S-1 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at the end of March, after the regulators sent a comment letter to the company, CEO Gene Hoffman said at a conference hosted by law firm Brown Rudnick in Manhattan. However, there is still no firm timeline for the IPO since the company wants to wait for the right market conditions, he later told CoinDesk.

Chia revealed in April 2023 that it wanted to go public, though its IPO plans took a detour because of financial distress at Credit Suisse, its underwriter. That led to Chia laying off a third of its staff in October.

Chia was founded by Bram Cohen, who invented the BitTorrent peer-to-peer filesharing technology. Unlike Bitcoin, which uses proof-of-work to run its blockchain, and Ethereum, which uses proof-of-stake, Chia uses proof-of-space and proof-of-time, which, in short, involves the allocation of computer storage on machines around the world.

Hoffman said Chia is planning to roll out a bridge for Circle's USDC stablecoin in the coming months, as well as additional infrastructure projects.

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Does the metaverse need to be on the blockchain? Execs weigh in

At a fireside chat on day 2 of the Singapore Fintech Festival on Thursday, Chia Der Jiun, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), articulated MAS' comprehensive vision for the fintech sector, which aims to establish Singapore as a leading global hub for financial technology. Its vision encompasses the creation of foundational building blocks to facilitate industry growth, such as interoperable payment systems and enhanced cross-border transaction frameworks through initiatives like Project Nexus, Chia said.

The managing director, who replaced Ravi Menon at the start of the year, said MAS is committed to fostering collaboration with industry players to navigate emerging technologies, including Generative AI, while ensuring that regulatory measures keep pace with innovation.

Additionally, the regulator is focused on unlocking the potential of asset tokenization, working closely with global financial institutions to address industry challenges and scale solutions to commercial viability.

MAS to Drive Commercialisation of Asset Tokenisation with Expanded Initiatives

MAS’ new measures reflect its commitment to establishing Singapore as a global hub for digital asset innovation and positioning tokenisation as a key element of the future financial landscape.

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Chia emphasized asset tokenization's economic benefits such as reduced duplication, cost savings, increased speed, and enhanced efficiency in various financial operations: "It's going to cut duplication, cut cost, increase speed, but cut time, The use cases are also very clear across multi currencies, payment settlement, treasury management, collateral management, and, of course, security settlement."

He elaborated on MAS' vision for tokenisation, underscoring the need for a collaborative approach to scale these innovations to commercial levels. MAS is actively working with industry participants through initiatives like Project Guardian and Global Layer One (GL1). These projects aim to address challenges and ensure that the benefits of tokenisation are realized at a broader scale, he said.

To implement tokenisation effectively, MAS has proposed a framework comprising token, settlement, and infrastructure layers. The first involves representing various assets—such as fixed income, foreign exchange (FX), funds, and securities—as tokens with agreed attributes. The next layer, settlement, aims to ensure high-quality settlement assets like central bank digital currency (CBDC), tokenised bank deposits, and stablecoins are integrated into the ecosystem. Finally, the infrastructure layer aims to develop interoperable and compliant infrastructure to support tokenisation – an area that the GL1 initiative aims to address, Chia explained.

The conversation also touched upon the emerging field of quantum computing and its implications for security. Chia mentioned that while quantum computers are still in the lab and not yet at commercial scale, it is not too early to consider their impact. He emphasized the importance of looking into security measures such as post-quantum encryption and quantum key distribution.

"Quantum is going to give you that compute power that is just exponentially greater than classical computers," he noted, highlighting the need to start preparing for these advancements now.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) says that stablecoins have the potential to become a widely adopted means of payment.

In an interview with The Business Times, MAS managing director Chia Der Jiun says stablecoins have immense potential provided that regulations are in place to keep the crypto assets from straying from their linked value.

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“Stablecoins have features that provide more value stability, with the potential to become a widely used payment instrument. MAS sees good potential in stablecoins provided they are well-regulated to have a high degree of value stability.

To this end, MAS finalized a regulatory approach for stablecoins, focusing on regulating the value stability risk of single-currency stablecoins.”

The MAS says it’s looking to establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins in an effort to protect users and consumers.

“We are working on the necessary legislative amendments to the PS (Payment Services) Act to implement the stablecoins framework. Only stablecoin issuers that fulfill all requirements under the framework can apply for their stablecoins to be regulated by MAS as ‘MAS-regulated stablecoins.’ This will allow the market to differentiate these stablecoins from other types that are not regulated for their value stability.”

The MAS also says that issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) – a stablecoin pegged to a nation’s currency issued by its reserve bank – is currently not needed at this time as cashless payments in the country are already efficient.

“MAS has assessed that the case for issuing a retail Singapore dollar CBDC in Singapore is not compelling at this juncture, as electronic payments in Singapore are quite pervasive, seamless and efficient.”

Jefferies: Samsung is likely to follow SK Hynix’s example to list in the US via ADRs.

Jeff Kim, Head of Research at Jefferies, said Samsung is likely to follow SK Hynix in listing on the U.S. market via American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), which will boost the share price of the South Korean chipmaker whose valuation lags behind Micron. "Chip stocks are at a turning point. ADRs will serve as an important catalyst to drive their valuations," he added.

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UBS and TD Cowen sharply raise Arm’s target price, betting on a revaluation of Arm’s AI data center CPU value.

Arm’s stock price pulled back this week alongside the high-valuation AI sector, though some Wall Street analysts say the correction does not alter the company’s long-term standing in AI data centers. UBS sharply raised Arm’s price target from $260 to $470, retaining its Buy rating; TD Cowen lifted its target from $265 to $475, also keeping a Buy recommendation. Both firms share the view that as agentic AI evolves, CPUs could gain greater importance in data center architectures, rather than GPUs continuing to monopolize the investment narrative. TD Cowen believes that over the long term, CPUs could hold a more strategic position in certain AI workloads. UBS, meanwhile, emphasizes that the real debate in the market centers on the revenue potential of Arm’s self-developed or independent CPU business. The bank projects Arm’s CPU-related revenue could reach around $14 billion by 2030, though the company itself has stated this business will not have a material impact on its finances until fiscal 2028. Arm’s strengths lie in low latency and energy efficiency—metrics that major cloud providers are increasingly prioritizing as they expand AI infrastructure. Even with its stock pulling back from recent highs in the short term, analysts still view Arm as one of the key beneficiaries of the server CPU upgrade cycle.

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Crypto whale who profited over $23.77 million from BAT ICO liquidates 27,586 ETH

According to monitoring by Yu Jing, a whale that earned $23.77 million from participating in the BAT ICO sold 15,000 ETH (valued at roughly $24.29 million) two hours ago. The whale has now fully liquidated all 27,586 ETH it received from selling 35 million BAT on-chain over the past day and a half, converting the proceeds into 44.836 million USDS at an average selling price of $1,625.

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Sources: Iraqi officials once considered withdrawing from OPEC, but current plans are to remain a member and pursue a higher quota.

A senior Iraqi oil ministry official said that if OPEC quotas are not significantly increased, Iraq will be forced to consider all available options. Sources said Iraqi officials had considered withdrawing from OPEC, but the current plan is to remain a member and push for higher quotas. (Jinshi)

13 minutes ago

Kepler Cheuvreux raises ASML’s European share price target from €1,460 to €1,830.

Kepler Cheuvreux has raised the target price for ASML’s European shares from €1,460 to €1,830.

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Stifel: U.S. economy in "overheated expansion" as AI investment cycle outweighs consumer pressure

U.S. large diversified financial services holding company Stifel has raised its year-end S&P 500 target and rolled out a stock allocation framework for a "high-growth, high-inflation" environment. The firm lifted its year-end S&P 500 target to 7,800 points, noting the U.S. economy is entering a "running hot" state—where economic growth is strengthening alongside mounting inflationary pressure. Stifel’s models show U.S. growth momentum is picking up while inflation momentum is clearly overheating, a trend that will reshape the market’s leading sector structure in the second half of the year. Instead of traditional consumer sectors, Stifel’s top picks are investment-led cyclical industries, including banks, transportation, materials, energy, semiconductors, software and equipment. The firm adds that fixed-asset investment in AI remains on the rise: large tech firms including Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Google are projected to combine for roughly $725 billion in total capital expenditures in 2026, some $100 billion higher than prior estimates. This means the AI investment chain is likely to continue outperforming the consumption chain squeezed by inflation. Stifel advises investors to reduce exposure to discretionary consumer, consumer staples, communication services and some financial services sectors, as these areas see weaker earnings revisions. Conversely, the firm favors cyclical value stocks and hedges with defensive value sectors such as insurance, autos, energy and banks.

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In brief MAS is finalising stablecoin legislation with emphasis on reserve backing and redemption reliability. It will also expand its central bank digital currency trials. A new guide on tokenised capital markets products is also set to be published. Singapore’s financial regulator is preparing to introduce new rules for stablecoins and expand central bank digital currency (CBDC) trials as part of a broader effort to build out its framework for digital assets.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) managing director, Chia Der Jiun, said Thursday that stablecoins could play a key role in future financial networks if they are properly supervised.

“Unregulated stablecoins have a patchy record of keeping their peg,” Chia told the Singapore FinTech Festival 2025. “Recurrent de-pegging can erode confidence, and trigger runs on other stablecoins.”

“Regulated stablecoins, while nascent, offer the prospect of value stability. Sound and robust regulation of stablecoins will be critical to underpin their stability,” he added. “We have seen national regulations taking shape rapidly. This is an important start. But things can take a wrong turn if there is a proliferation of poorly regulated stablecoins, undermining confidence in others.”

Chia said MAS had finalized the features of its stablecoin regulatory regime and would soon prepare draft legislation. “Under our regime, we have given importance to sound reserve backing and redemption reliability,” he said.

Singapore’s approach to regulating digital finance has balanced between tight standards with industry-led pilots. The new stablecoin rules build on years of sandbox experimentation and projects like Project Guardian, which has tested tokenised foreign exchange, fixed income, and fund transactions since 2022.

Singapore started looking at asset-backed tokens with the launch of Project Guardian in 2022. It collaborated with industry partners to test use cases in FX, funds, fixed income, and showed that tokenization worked and delivered benefits. 24/7 near instant settlement; programmability enabling PvP and DvP; no settlement lags, fewer intermediaries, less pre-funding.

That work has already delivered tangible results. Tokenised bonds and money market funds are being traded on-chain, and banks are offering tokenised cash management services. But, Chia noted, asset-backed tokens have yet to achieve “escape velocity.” To reach that point, he said, there needs to be standardised token formats, interoperable networks and a deep pool of safe settlement assets.

MAS will also publish a guide on the tokenization of capital markets products, offering case studies and disclosure guidance to clarify how tokenised securities fit under existing rules. It is working with international partners, including UK regulators, to harmonise standards for asset-backed tokens.

Chia cautioned that progress will depend on use cases that demonstrate value and stability for clients. “Market participants must bring use cases that demonstrate value and stability,” he said. “They have to build participation and liquidity.”

A "balanced middle" approachAdrian Wall, CEO of the Digital Sovereignty Alliance, described Singapore's approach to regulation as sitting in a “balanced middle.”

“MAS combines strict consumer protection with one of the most advanced tokenization programs in the world. Its stablecoin framework is narrower in scope than MiCA but deeper on safety and redemption, positioning MAS-regulated stablecoins as a reliable bridge between fiat and digital assets,” he told Decrypt.

“Singapore is closest to the equilibrium we’d like to see globally: clear standards, shared infrastructure, and controlled experimentation. The opportunity now is to ensure these frameworks are accessible not only to global banks but also to builders and communities who can turn them into everyday value.”

For stablecoin firms in the city, he said MAS had “put stablecoins on a bank-grade footing without killing innovation.”

He added if he could nudge MAS on anything, it would be on access and on-ramps. “The rules are clear, but smaller innovators still struggle to enter pilots or get banking connectivity. I would like to see more graduated pathways into the regime for early-stage firms that meet the spirit of the framework, and clearer guidance on how foreign fiat-backed stablecoins that already meet high standards elsewhere can interoperate with the Singapore ecosystem without creating regulatory gaps,” he said.

Louise Ivan Valencia Payawal, co-founder and CEO of Ryder.id, added that the industry will benefit from MAS pushing even further. “The speech laid out what needs to happen for asset-backed tokens to reach “escape velocity,” but the current pace of implementation and licensing can still slow down innovators who are ready to build today. Faster approvals, clearer timelines, and more detailed guidance on areas like decentralised finance and self-custody would help ensure Singapore does not fall behind markets that are moving aggressively while still maintaining safeguards,” he said.

He added that across jurisdictions, the trade-offs are becoming clearer. “The United States has scale but uncertainty. Europe has harmonisation, but a slower evolution. Hong Kong supports retail participation. Dubai offers permissiveness. Singapore focuses on trust, interoperability, and institutional-grade networks,” he said.

However, Payawal noted, while MAS wants to avoid walled gardens and prevent a fragmented global landscape, "achieving this requires stronger coordination across international regulators and faster adoption of global standards." He argued that Singapore risks becoming "an advanced testbed without equivalent commercial scale" if other jurisdictions steal a march on it, adding that, "A stronger push to turn pilots into live, industry-wide implementations will be critical if Singapore wants to lead not only in experimentation but in global influence."

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