Tiger Research argues that Asia’s prediction market problem is not weak public acceptance, but the absence of legal structures that can classify and supervise the sector. In the report, the firm contrasts Asia with the United States, the United Kingdom, and parts of Europe, where prediction markets have at least found routes into existing systems through derivatives law, betting intermediary licenses, or dedicated legislative treatment. By comparison, many Asian jurisdictions still lack both a general licensing regime that private operators can use and an open-ended financial product definition that can cover non-financial event contracts. The report says that gap has not stopped activity. Instead, liquidity has moved to offshore platforms, leaving governments without tax revenue and users without formal consumer protection or market integrity oversight. Tiger Research points to more than $52 million, or about KRW 72.8 billion, in liquidity tied to South Korea’s June 2026 local elections as evidence that demand already exists even without a domestic framework. It outlines three policy routes for Asia: adapt gambling regulation, absorb prediction markets through derivatives law, or create a standalone third category similar to Gibraltar’s new approach. The report concludes that before any of those options can advance, Asian jurisdictions first need a public policy process that openly debates what prediction markets are and how they should be classified.

U.S. initial jobless claims for the week ended Aug. 1 came in at 199,000, below the 202,000 forecast. In Shenzhen, a company employee who stole confidential R&D folders and posed as an overseas hacker was sentenced after demanding BTC and USDT. The roundup also covers an increase in impersonation scams after the EU’s MiCA transition period ended, Circle’s renewed Coinbase deal, and a Chainalysis report on violent crypto theft cases.

European Union regulators are warning of a rise in impersonation scams after the MiCA licensing rules took effect. Scammers are posing as financial regulators and crypto firms, targeting customers of crypto service providers that failed to obtain an EU license. The fraudsters use fake websites and forged documents to trick users into transferring assets. France's Financial Markets Authority (AMF) said scammers have impersonated its representatives and directed users to move funds through fraudulent websites, according to AMF official Stéphane Pontoizeau. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) said it has detected abuse of its identity and branding, including the use of forged documents. Under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), crypto companies have needed authorization since July 1 to operate in the EU. Unauthorized firms must wind down or transfer their EU business. An ESMA list updated at the end of July shows only 323 licensed crypto companies so far. By comparison, data provider VASPnet previously estimated that more than 1,700 unlicensed companies would have to stop operations.

The European Securities and Markets Authority updated its Markets in Crypto-Assets, or MiCA, register on July 31, adding 12 companies and raising the total number of authorized crypto-asset service providers to 321. The update marked the fourth revision since the July 1 transition deadline. Among the newly added entities were three cooperative banks from Germany: Volksbank Raiffeisenbank Oberbayern Südost, VR Bank Schleswig-Holstein Mitte, and VR-Bank Landau-Mengkofen. The list also included Spain-based Basque Pay and Fintech Payments, along with France-based Finary, Woorton, Blockchain Process Security, and Shares Financial Assets. ESMA also added Cervo Rendisco, Flandenzo, and Corona Fondenza to its non-compliant entities list, based on markings from Italy’s securities regulator, Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa, or CONSOB. That non-compliant list now contains 167 entries. No other MiCA-related registers changed in this update. The number of authorized electronic money token issuers remained at 41, while the register for asset-referenced token issuers still shows no entities.

Robinhood’s rollout of more than 200 tokenized U.S. stocks for European users, including promotional tokens tied to SpaceX and OpenAI, has reignited a basic question in digital asset markets: what exactly does a buyer own? According to the report, the answer is usually not stock. OpenAI publicly said on July 1, 2025 that the so-called OpenAI tokens were not OpenAI equity and said it had neither partnered with Robinhood nor endorsed the offering. The structural issue is central. A SpaceX token may reference an SPV holding preferred shares, while the OpenAI version may trace back to a convertible note rather than stock. In both cases, buyers generally receive contractual economic exposure linked to valuation changes, not voting rights, a place on the shareholder register, or direct ownership. Market participants quoted in the piece drew a line between common contractual claims and true ownership tokenization, where the token itself is the asset. Regulators have made a similar point. ESMA warned that tokenized instruments often do not grant shareholder rights, and SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said tokenized securities remain securities. The report argues that while the broader RWA market is growing quickly, most tokenized stocks still stop short of conveying actual ownership.

The European Securities and Markets Authority updated its Markets in Crypto-Assets register on Thursday, adding 15 crypto-asset service providers, or CASPs. The new entries include newly compliant firms from Bulgaria, Denmark and Latvia, according to the update cited by Cointelegraph. The move marks the latest step in the rollout of the MiCA framework after earlier batches of authorized entities were added following the July 1 deadline. ESMA is still processing applications from providers seeking authorization, while companies continue moving through licensing procedures needed to operate in the European market. The latest additions show that the approval pipeline remains active as more firms work toward regulatory clearance under the EU’s new crypto regime.

The European Securities and Markets Authority updated its temporary Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) register on Friday, adding 15 licensed crypto-asset service providers and bringing the total to 309. The newly added entities include BNY SA/NV, the Belgian subsidiary of U.S. banking giant BNY Mellon. The update also added four banking institutions in total, three of them from Germany, alongside digital asset platforms including BitPay, Coinify, and Bleap. By country, Germany and Denmark each saw three new CASPs added, while Bulgaria and Latvia added two each. Belgium, Cyprus, Liechtenstein, and the Netherlands each added one. ESMA said the latest update did not change any other MiCA-related registers, including those covering asset-referenced tokens, e-money tokens, authorized crypto-asset issuers, and non-compliant entities. The regulator had previously added 14 CASPs in its second update after the July 1 transition deadline, including Ripple Payments Europe.

PANews’ July 25 daily roundup collected a broad set of crypto regulatory, market, project, funding, and data developments, led by two market signals: analysts said stablecoin inflows to exchanges have fallen to their lowest level of 2025, while U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a combined net outflow of $240 million on July 24, with BlackRock’s IBIT accounting for $212 million of that figure. The report also covered a Hong Kong court sentencing Xiao Rui, son of former Wuhan supervisory official Xiao Jun, to six years and nine months in prison in a money-laundering case involving more than HK$64 million; Thailand’s SEC filing criminal complaints against Bitkub Online and two former directors over disclosures tied to a 2021 theft; and India’s move to ask GitHub to remove repositories for Bitchat, an offline messaging app backed by Jack Dorsey. On the project and corporate side, PANews highlighted Robinhood’s talks with Crypto.com on prediction markets, Across Protocol’s post-mortem on a relayer incident, LayerZero’s plan to wind down support for 20 low-activity chains, Phantom’s scheduled end of support for Monad, BlackRock’s transfer of about 3,126 BTC to Coinbase Prime, Circle’s mint of 250 million USDC, and World Foundation’s $52.5 million strategic WLD sale led by Pantera Capital. The roundup also included updates on Anduril, LMAX, B2C2, Capital Group, ARK, Kinetic Group, Bitcoin volatility, and Hyperliquid buybacks.