From Seoul to Washington, and then to private credit assets on the Stellar chain, a series of originally scattered events overlapped during the same time period: South Korean regulators are pushing for amendments to the special anti-fraud law, planning to include victim funds converted into cryptocurrency due to fraud within the scope of compensation and return, with the new regulations expected to take effect from October 1; the FATF's latest report warns of a significant increase in criminal activities related to on-chain assets anchored to fiat currencies, as some criminal networks begin to create such assets to evade freezing and tracking; on the U.S. regulated prediction market platform Kalshi, a teleprompter operator related to a speech by Trump is under investigation by the CFTC for suspected insider trading advantages in betting on prediction contracts. Almost simultaneously, Tradable announced its plan to tokenize up to $1 billion in private credit assets on the Stellar blockchain, with an initial issuance of about $500 million in nominal assets to be tokenized and circulated on-chain; Alpaca completed a $135 million equity financing and up to $300 million in debt financing, publicly stating its intention to focus resources on asset tokenization infrastructure. As of July 17, 2026, the tightening of regulations around anti-fraud, anti-money laundering, and market integrity coincides with the acceleration of real-world assets (RWA) represented by private credit moving on-chain, with tokenization plans on Stellar and Alpaca’s financing expansion becoming the most intuitive on-chain signals from the "compliance on-chain" side, pointing together to a judgment: strong regulation and RWA coexist rather than offset each other.
South Korea's New Anti-fraud Regulations: Compensation for Stolen Crypto
The key to South Korea's amendment of the special anti-fraud law lies in filling a long-existing "black hole": once victim funds are rapidly exchanged for on-chain assets by fraudsters and transferred across borders, they often "disappear" during the compensation and return stages. The new text explicitly includes such cryptocurrency assets within the scope of victim fund return, meaning that as long as judicial authorities determine they originate from fraud, even if they have been transferred to exchange accounts or on-chain addresses, they will be viewed as recoverable, convertible, and returnable property, rather than being legally ambiguous technological products.
For local exchanges and other cryptocurrency service providers, this is not a "background clause," but rather directly raises the threshold for compliance responsibilities. When the involved funds are quickly transferred on-chain and flow between platforms, these platforms will need to deeply integrate with police and courts in identity verification, abnormal transaction detection, and account freezing processes, using more detailed on-chain records to assist in compensation calculations and asset returns. The South Korean Financial Services Commission's involvement in promoting the amendments itself signals proactive regulatory intervention in cryptocurrency cases: once the new regulations take effect on October 1, on-chain assets will be clearly regarded as enforceable forms of property in judicial practice, with cryptocurrency service providers being more directly integrated into the system chain of anti-fraud and recovery.
Self-Minted Stablecoins: FATF Issues Yellow Card
At the same time South Korea attempts to bring on-chain assets back under judicial oversight, global standard setters have turned their attention to another more covert undercurrent—the systemic abuse of price-pegged tokens. These tokens were originally intended to maintain relatively stable value for ease of cross-border high-frequency use, yet in practice, they have provided ideal "transport tools" for criminal networks: cross-border transfers are not constrained by traditional banking reporting, on-chain addresses consist of characters without names, and after the splitting and transferring across multiple chains and addresses, the original sources of funds are quickly diluted among thousands of transactions, creating additional difficulty for tracking and freezing.
According to the latest FATF report, criminal activities related to such pegged assets are on the rise; some criminal groups are no longer satisfied with using publicly issued tokens but have instead developed their own pegged tokens to evade asset freezing with private contracts and closed circulation circles. The report did not provide specific figures on the scale of self-created token crime, but reminded member states of the trend: the traditional anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing frameworks built around exchanges, custodians, and other virtual asset service providers are struggling to cope with this type of "self-minting, self-producing, self-selling" model. Countries must accelerate the implementation of licensing systems for service providers, suspicious transaction reporting, and on-chain data retention while also facing the structural gaps in cross-border cooperation—when tokens can freely traverse jurisdictions with varying regulatory strengths, any single country's compliance efforts are unlikely to truly compress the operational space of criminal networks.
Kalshi's Prediction Market Controversy: Information Advantage vs. Regulation
As countries strengthen suspicious transaction reporting and cross-border cooperation, a new risk is highlighted on the U.S. prediction market platform Kalshi, regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), where a teleprompter operator related to Trump’s speech is suspected of crossing the line into illegal arbitrage due to information advantage. The operator reportedly placed prediction contract bets regarding the outcome of Trump’s speech on the platform, implying that they may have accessed the speech content and timing before the details were made public, raising market questions about whether they exploited internal information advantages for profit, which sparked the CFTC's investigation.
Notably, this incident was not triggered by an external report; rather, Kalshi's internal monitoring team first identified the unusual trading. The platform's enforcement supervisor emphasized in public statements that after reviewing transaction records, the team quickly flagged the relevant accounts as suspicious and turned over investigation materials to the CFTC, which subsequently initiated formal investigation procedures, with details of the profits and amounts yet to be disclosed. For the prediction market, this represents an awkward yet typical scenario: on one hand, information advantage is a core motivator for participants to place bets; on the other hand, when such advantages derive from undisclosed sensitive occupational information, regulators have no choice but to regard them as structural risks affecting market integrity. In the increasingly tightening compliance landscape, the real question for regulated prediction platforms is how to prevent stifling price discovery based on heterogeneous expectations while setting clear boundaries for suspicious sources of information advantage.
Tradable Moves Private Credit on Stellar Chain
As regulators focus on information advantages and market integrity, another participant on the line begins pushing traditional assets directly to the public chain. Tradable has announced a plan to issue up to $1 billion of private credit assets on the Stellar blockchain in tokenized form, with an initial expected launch of about $500 million in nominal assets, gradually expanding to a target of $1 billion after verifying the usability of products and infrastructure. Stellar has long been positioned as the underlying network for cross-border settlement and asset issuance, natively supporting the issuance and management of various tokens, making it technically feasible to break down complex private credit contracts into on-chain programmable tokens.
In terms of rhythm, the path of initial issuance of $500 million followed by a push towards $1 billion means this is not just a symbolic "small-scale test," but rather a phased approach to accelerate the on-chaining of RWAs. For traditional financial participants, tokenizing private credit in public chain form changes more than just the bookkeeping medium: holders must adapt to on-chain asset monitoring and disclosure requirements, compliance departments must reevaluate the relationship between "on-chain programmable rights" and existing regulatory frameworks, and custodians must explain how to achieve access control and risk isolation in a public network. According to AiCoin data, specific on-chain addresses and holder structures have not yet been disclosed; this round is more of a signal at the product and infrastructure level, but combined with Alpaca's expansion in asset tokenization infrastructure, it is evident that private credit on the public chain is emerging as a key testing ground at the intersection of tightening regulation and compliance innovation.
Alpaca Secures Huge Financing: Paving the Way for RWA
If Tradable is pushing private credit onto the chain directly on Stellar, Alpaca seems to be building the "pipeline" and foundation behind the scenes. Alpaca announced the completion of $135 million in equity financing led by Peak XV, alongside securing up to $300 million in debt financing, providing ample leverage for its business expansion. In public statements, the team clearly points this funding towards the expansion of asset tokenization-related infrastructure and service capabilities, continuing its position as "providing tokenization and compliance service technology platforms for institutions."
In juxtaposition with Tradable's action of already starting to tokenize up to $1 billion in private credit assets, it is clear that capital and technology in the RWA sector are increasing simultaneously: one end is issuing and circulating specific assets on the public chain, while the other end is establishing the foundational tools for tokenization, compliance, and risk control for institutions. The former validates whether "traditional assets can be safely moved on-chain," while the latter addresses "whether institutions dare or are capable of staying on-chain long-term." Against the backdrop of tightening regulations, the combined approach of Tradable and Alpaca outlines a complete pathway for moving assets like private credit on-chain, and suggests that the next stage of competition in the RWA sector will revolve around who can stably transition traditional financial rules and trust structures to the public network under strict scrutiny.
Regulation and On-Chain Development: The Next Stop in Compliance Games
From South Korea's revision of the special anti-fraud law to consecutive regulatory actions in international and U.S. contexts, the contours of regulation are becoming clear: on one hand, South Korea is integrating victim funds converted into cryptocurrency due to fraud into compensation and return processes, expected to formally take effect from October 1, substantially pulling on-chain assets into the country's judicial and compensation frameworks; on the other hand, the FATF's latest report explicitly reminds countries to guard against price-pegged on-chain assets and "self-created stablecoins" being used by criminal networks as tools to evade freezing and tracking, simultaneously urging member states to effectively implement anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing requirements on relevant service providers. In terms of market integrity, the U.S. regulatory focus has landed on Kalshi: a teleprompter operator reportedly utilized insider information related to Trump’s speech to place prediction contract bets, and the platform's internal monitoring team quickly flagged and turned over the case to the CFTC, with the results of future investigations likely determining key boundaries for insider information in prediction markets. In sync with this tightening curve, Tradable has chosen to tokenize up to $1 billion in private credit assets on Stellar, while Alpaca is leveraging equity and debt financing to bet resources on asset tokenization infrastructure expansion. Large traditional assets are accelerating their transition to on-chain, but they must do so under stricter compliance constraints. Moving forward, it is crucial to observe not only whether South Korea can effectively close the judicial loophole of "electronic fraud funds entering the chain" after the new regulations are implemented, and how countries will adjust their rules and collaborative mechanisms for on-chain assets under ongoing FATF pressure, but also how the CFTC will handle the Kalshi incident and reshape compliance design in information-driven markets, and whether RWA participants like Tradable and Alpaca can find a stable balance between transparency disclosure, on-chain governance, and risk control, as the pattern of parallel tightening regulation and asset on-boarding is not likely to disappear in the short term. Who can establish credible and scalable compliance practices within this framework is likely to gain an advantage in the next phase of competition in crypto finance.
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