South Korean technology company Naver and digital asset operator Dunamu announced a five-year investment of 10 trillion Korean won ($6.8 billion) to develop financial infrastructure integrating artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies. The investment follows Naver Financial's acquisition of Dunamu, parent company of South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchange Upbit, through a share-swap arrangement. The partnership aims to establish a comprehensive system spanning payments, settlements, and broader financial services.

Securitize secured regulatory approval from Spain's CNMV on Wednesday to operate a trading and settlement system under the EU's DLT Pilot Regime. The firm will build its European infrastructure on Avalanche, with the first issuance planned for early 2026.

Crypto market maker DWF Labs has launched a $75 million proprietary fund targeting decentralized finance infrastructure across Ethereum, BNB Chain, Solana, and Base. The fund will support projects addressing liquidity provisioning, settlement systems, credit mechanisms, and on-chain risk management, according to co-founder Andrei Grachev. The vehicle is not currently accepting external investors.

Coinbase Ventures has outlined its 2026 investment priorities, focusing on teams building asset tokenization solutions, specialized trading infrastructure, next-generation DeFi protocols, and AI-powered robotics. The venture arm highlighted RWA perpetuals as providing faster and more flexible exposure to real-world assets than traditional tokenization approaches. Investment targets also include proprietary automated market makers on Solana, prediction market aggregators, and expanded perpetual futures functionality.

Thailand's Personal Data Protection Commission has ordered World Network to halt biometric data collection and delete records of 1.2 million local users. The regulator cited violations of the Personal Data Protection Act, stating the blockchain project allegedly transferred iris scan data to third parties in exchange for cryptocurrency tokens without proper authorization.

Coinbase Ventures has outlined its 2026 investment strategy, prioritizing perpetual futures for real-world assets, specialized trading platforms, and AI-blockchain integration. The venture arm identified prediction market terminals and reputation-based lending as emerging opportunities in decentralized finance.

MegaETH terminated its pre-deposit campaign after multiple technical malfunctions pushed contributions to $500 million, well beyond initial controls. An early execution of a Safe multisig transaction, combined with configuration errors and rate-limiting issues, allowed deposits to proceed uncontrolled. The team froze the raise at $500 million and abandoned plans to expand to $1 billion.

KakaoBank has advanced its Korean won-pegged stablecoin project into active development, according to Newspim. The digital bank, part of South Korean tech conglomerate Kakao, is recruiting blockchain backend developers with expertise in smart contracts and token standards. The move follows similar initiatives by competitor Naver, which is reportedly pursuing a merger with Upbit, the country's largest cryptocurrency exchange.