Cointelegraph’s latest Asia Express rounds up a wide spread of developments across Asian crypto markets, from shareholder anger at Japanese Bitcoin treasury firm Metaplanet to a sharp rise in Southeast Asian funding led by Singapore. Metaplanet’s 10th Series executive option pool has drawn criticism because it was set at 20% of fully diluted shares and expands as new shares are issued to finance Bitcoin accumulation, prompting some investors to call for the cancellation of 273 million added shares. At the regional level, Tracxn data shows Southeast Asian crypto funding rose to $680 million across 25 rounds in 2026 from $319 million a year earlier, even as the number of deals fell from 46. Singapore remained dominant, hosting 2,285 of the region’s 3,957 blockchain companies and accounting for 82.5% of all-time blockchain equity funding tracked in the region. The report also covers Citi’s blockchain payment plans in Japan, US sanctions and restraints tied to Xinbi Guarantee, Gemini’s Singapore MPI license, Circle’s $400 million Tazapay deal, South Korea’s tokenized securities roadmap, Indian enforcement and policy updates, Thailand’s Webull acquisition of Pi Securities, a proposed Philippine registration freeze, Hong Kong issues tied to Chelsea’s USDC jersey, and Boyaa Interactive’s latest Bitcoin purchase.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday sanctioned Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language marketplace it labeled a transnational criminal organization, while the Justice Department moved the same day to seize the platform’s infrastructure and digital-asset wallets. Treasury said Xinbi has processed more than $24 billion in digital assets and fiat currency since roughly 2022, and said its users have reportedly included North Korean hackers and entities already under U.S. sanctions. Treasury also tied Xinbi’s growth directly to earlier action against Huione Pay. After the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network moved against Huione Pay, cybercriminals shifted to Xinbi, which Treasury said kept offering substantially similar services to an overlapping customer base. Around June 2025, as law enforcement scrutiny increased, Xinbi began moving its merchants and money-laundering networks to the encrypted messaging app SafeW and launched a wallet called XinbiPay. The crackdown started before the sanctions announcement. On Tuesday, 52 wallets holding $52.8 million in USDT were frozen based on intelligence Elliptic provided to the Secret Service. The Justice Department then seized two of those wallets, holding about $12 million, and a court also authorized the seizure of Telegram channels hosting the marketplace. According to Elliptic, Xinbi administrators condemned Tether’s address freezes and said they were shifting to USDD, a Tron-based stablecoin without a similar freeze function.

Blockchain analytics firm Bitrace said Fulilai Guarantee, a transaction guarantee platform also known as 福利来担保, began removing all money-laundering-related public-group merchants last night. According to Bitrace, the cleanup covers illegal entities tied to "card-to-USDT" and "cash car." The firm also said the "Fulilai Wallet" operated by the platform is seeing rapid capital outflows. Since the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, formally announced sanctions on Xinbi Guarantee, the wallet has recorded 9.3 million USDT in outflows. Bitrace had previously said that after sanctions hit Xinbi Guarantee, a secretly deployed sub-guarantee platform linked to it showed unusual outflows, while a large number of guarantee merchants were quickly leaving the related market.

Chainalysis said threat groups linked to North Korea moved and laundered tens of millions of dollars in stolen cryptocurrency through Xinbi Guarantee, a cybercrime marketplace that was recently sanctioned. The firm’s investigation found that the actors used a laundering vendor on the platform known as “Black U” to swap traceable stolen assets for stablecoins tied to pig-butchering and romance scams, then converted those funds into fiat through unlicensed over-the-counter brokers. Chainalysis said this pattern appeared in flows tied to the Bybit and WazirX hacks. The company also estimated that Xinbi has processed about $24 billion in total volume. Beyond laundering, the platform’s services were said to include bank card fraud, personal data trading, KYC evasion, scam platform development, surveillance equipment and malware. Xinbi has already been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and the U.K. Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, while the U.S. Department of Justice has seized its infrastructure and frozen $52 million in illicit crypto assets.

Tether carried out a large-scale freeze targeting Telegram-based cryptocurrency guarantee platforms on Sept. 8, according to an address analysis published by blockchain security firm Beosin. The firm said 19 frozen addresses were linked to Xinbi Guarantee and held about $43.437 million, while another 31 merchant addresses tied to the same platform accounted for more than $9 million. Beosin also traced the largest frozen address, identifying it as a Xinbi deposit address with roughly 10.78 million USDT frozen. The address had received nearly $143 million and transferred $132 million, and Tether also froze addresses up to five hops downstream in that flow. Another major payout address had processed about $920 million, with around $205 million sent to merchants related to Xinbi Guarantee and $26.61 million sent to merchants linked to Tudou Guarantee. The report places the freeze in the context of shifting guarantee-platform activity in Southeast Asia, where Beosin says enforcement pressure pushed business from Huione Guarantee to Tudou Guarantee and later toward Xinbi Guarantee. The firm added that Xinbi has now shifted to USDD, which it described as a stablecoin that cannot be frozen.

Crypto markets saw an unusually dense flow of developments between Sept. 9 and Sept. 10, with LAPTOP drawing the most attention after its launch, airdrop claims, market-maker allocations, liquidity incentives and extreme price moves all unfolded in quick succession. Security concerns emerged at the same time, including phishing warnings tied to LAPTOP and a separate email phishing alert from hardware wallet maker Trezor. Beyond LAPTOP, on-chain activity showed large ZEC buying through three wallets, a profitable six-month run in VVV and LIT by whale address 0x7378, and fresh positioning by trader Based16z. Binance listed Niulai and expanded related services, while Binance Alpha added 4Stock and A Meme Coin. Institutional and infrastructure news also arrived in size. Aave launched an official MCP server for AI agents, Consensys spun out MetaMask into an independent entity, U.S. Bank tested cross-border payments using USBDC on Stellar, PayPal formally rolled out its PYUSDx platform, and Tether teamed up with Fasanara Capital on a $400 million private credit fund. Regulators and policymakers were active as well, with U.S. enforcement action against Xinbi Guarantee, fresh pressure in Washington around the CLARITY Act, and an EU move to extend local contact-point rules to crypto service providers.

The U.S. Secret Service froze $52.8 million in cryptocurrency linked to Xinbi Guarantee on Sept. 8, targeting a Chinese-language marketplace on Telegram that allegedly provides services used in scams worldwide. The action covered 52 wallets holding USDT, with about $12 million in two wallets seized under a warrant unsealed by the Department of Justice and the rest frozen pending further steps. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said its years-long tracking of Xinbi and its wallet infrastructure directly enabled both the freeze and U.S. sanctions announced the same day. According to Elliptic, Xinbi and its merchants have processed at least $24 billion since 2022, making it the second-largest illicit online marketplace it has tracked, behind Huione Guarantee. On Sept. 9, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Xinbi as a transnational criminal organization and also sanctioned Singapore-based SafeW Technology and Cambodia-based Anwen Technology for supporting its operations. The report also said Xinbi appears to be moving part of its funds from USDT into USDD through a decentralized exchange, while the DOJ’s Scam Center Strike Force carried out related anti-scam operations in Madagascar.

The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned Xinbi Guarantee, described as another widespread cyber-scam hub. According to CoinDesk, the Chinese-language platform is accused of operating through cryptocurrency transactions while offering services to other criminal networks. The input provided does not include additional details on the scope of the sanctions, any named entities beyond Xinbi Guarantee, or specific transaction figures. The move places Xinbi among platforms facing U.S. regulatory action over alleged use of crypto infrastructure in broader cyber-enabled crime. CoinDesk identified the platform as Chinese-language and tied its activity to services provided for other criminal groups, but no further operational timeline or enforcement specifics were included in the source digest.