Google's Crypto Empire Unleashed, North Korea's Covert Finance War & More

Welcome back!

This is J264G and this week I’ve got these titbits for you:

• Permissioned Networks: CME and Google keep pushing tokenisation forward.

• Bitcoin Node: The US military is operating a live node on the Bitcoin network.

• Financial Warfare: North Korea's war on finance hides in plain sight. 

Self custody is the foundation everything else gets built on—miss this and you've built a skyscraper on sand. Great to see the US stepping up and setting the pace.

Now, let’s jump right into this week’s newsletter!

Click on any underlined heading/hyperlink to learn more.

Spotlight

Financial Warfare

For more than a decade, North Korea, a rogue state with a GDP smaller than Vermont's, has been running circles around the global financial system, lifting billions from banks, exchanges, and now DeFi.

In 2016, Pyongyang hacked the central bank of Bangladesh and walked off with $81mn. Last year, it drained $1.5bn from a single crypto exchange in an afternoon. And in the past few weeks, multiple DeFi platforms have been gutted, hundreds of millions gone.

This is not a string of unfortunate events. This is the most successful offensive financial operation of the modern era, executed by a country that cannot reliably keep its lights on.

The industry's response? Post-mortems. Audits. Earnest threads on 𝕏 about lessons learned. This is the cybersecurity equivalent of bringing a PowerPoint deck to a knife fight.

Here's what nobody wants to say out loud: this isn't just finance, or crypto, getting hacked. This is the first sustained financial war between North Korea and the rest of the world. The attackers aren't kids in hoodies. They're a state actor with a national budget, a decade of trade craft, and a mandate to fund a nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programme.

Every financial platform is now a battlefield, whether it consents or not. 

We are at war with North Korea. 
We are losing. 
We need to admit it and act accordingly.

Until we do, every venue handling money is just begging to be looted—because Pyongyang has the keys, the patience, and the next ten targets already lined up.

Chart Of The Week

News Bites

Perpetual Futures: Last week I noted Kalshi appeared poised to launch perpetual futures. Polymarket has now jumped ahead, announcing the launch of perpetual futures contracts covering cryptocurrencies, equities, and commodities. The prediction market platform also confirmed plans to migrate away from the Polygon blockchain, citing the need for greater block space, lower transaction fees, and faster block times. The destination network has not been disclosed.

Bitcoin Node: Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, has told Congress that the US military is operating a live node on the Bitcoin network. The node is not being used for mining, Paparo said, but to monitor network activity and conduct operational tests. 

Permissioned Networks: CME Group used its latest earnings call to highlight progress on its tokenised cash product, developed in conjunction with Google Cloud Universal Ledger. The Bank of Montreal—Canada's oldest financial institution—serves as the platform's inaugural counterparty, with the aim of facilitating round-the-clock settlement flows.

PACE Act: Representatives Young Kim and Sam Liccardo unveiled legislation creating a national payments licence granting fintech and crypto firms direct access to Federal Reserve payment rails. The PACE Act won't reshape the payments system overnight, but it codifies a quiet truth long taken for granted: that access to core financial infrastructure need not run exclusively through banks.

European Stablecoin: Twelve European banks have selected Fireblocks to provide the underlying infrastructure for a new euro-denominated stablecoin compliant with the bloc's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. The consortium is targeting a launch in the second half of 2026.

Aviation Intelligence: Wingbits, a decentralised flight-tracking network built on Solana, said its community-operated devices now provide 85% of the coverage of the largest incumbent networks while using a tenth of the hardware. The project reports more than 5,500 active daily devices across over 120 countries and tracks 200,000 flights per day. Customers include the research and development division of Korean Air.

Caught In 4K

Weekly Take

Keks & Giggles

And that's a wrap!

You can reach me anytime over on 𝕏 or drop me a line. 

Talk soon!

J264G

_{DISCLAIMER
None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research. Lastly, please be advised that we discuss products and services from our partners from which our team members may hold tokens/equity.}