[DigitalToday reporter Hyunwoo Choo] Preparations for taxation came under scrutiny during the National Assembly’s parliamentary audit. Lim Kwang-hyun (임광현), commissioner of the National Tax Service, said at a meeting of the audit’s Fiscal Economy Planning Committee that the agency is preparing to be able to issue detailed standards for digital asset taxation around November.

• National Tax Service "Preparing to issue digital asset taxation standards in November" • [Audit 2026] "Digital Asset Basic Act in final stage... South Korea will not lag global trends"

In response to criticism that standards remain unclear for categories such as staking, airdrops, hard forks and DeFi, Lim said the key was whether it amounted to a transfer or a loan, and that economic substance mattered more than labels. Airdrops and hard forks would be taxable if they have the nature of a transfer or a loan, he said, while some cases such as staking require additional consultations with the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Cho Seung-rae (조승래), chairman of the National Assembly’s Fiscal Economy Planning Committee, urged preparations on the premise that the current system would be implemented unless the National Assembly separately decides to delay it. The National Tax Service plans to begin verification from filings made in May 2028, after the law takes effect.

On the issue, Lee Eok-won (이억원), chairman of the Financial Services Commission, said of phase-two legislation under the Digital Asset Basic Act, which includes institutionalising stablecoins, "We have already prepared the content and are in final-stage consultations." Lee said the government plans to operate the system for stablecoin types and the digital asset exchange licensing framework in consideration of market conditions.

• "Hecto Financial expands global payment network... expects to lead stablecoin settlement"

Meanwhile, the securities industry published analysis saying Hecto Financial is broadening its business base in the global digital asset payment and settlement market by joining the OpenUSD ecosystem following Circle Payments Network (CPN). It also raised the possibility that the company could pre-empt future demand for stablecoin settlement at home and abroad, based on its existing foreign-exchange licence, global cross-border partner network and bank transfer network.

• Bitcoin fails again to break $87,000 for a fourth time... limited inflows of new funds • CoinShares "Condition for bitcoin’s rise to continue is inflows on fiscal concerns, not interest rates" • Blocks to triple in size... key points to watch for the imminent Ethereum 'Glamsterdam' upgrade

Bitcoin has tried four times to break above $87,000 since Sept. 21 but has been blocked by heavy sell orders on the upper side of exchange order books. Ethereum’s next major upgrade, "Glamsterdam", was applied on Oct. 6 to the Sepolia testnet and proceeded without issues through block finality. The name combines the consensus-layer upgrade "Gloas" and the execution-layer "Amsterdam". There is room for the block gas limit to rise from the current 60 million to about 200 million, and the maximum smart contract size increases from 24KiB to 64KiB. Key elements are ePBS (EIP-7732), which embeds the roles of proposer and builder into the protocol, and a block-level access list (EIP-7928). It would allow multiple transactions to be verified at the same time instead of processing them sequentially one by one. Even if the upgrade is applied, throughput will not immediately triple, and the eventual extent of any limit increase will be decided later by validators. The mainnet target is the fourth quarter of 2026, but the timeline could change as Sepolia’s application slipped to Oct. 6 from Aug. 3.

• XRP blocked at the $1.52 threshold… a pattern similar to 2022 • "Something big is coming"… XRP community stirred by former CFTC commissioner’s visit to Ripple headquarters • XRP again faces centralisation dispute… Justin Bons says 'decentralisation claims are a scam'

XRP failed to recover $1.52 and then fell to around $1.40. Analyst Chartnerd said it is facing resistance below the 50-week exponential moving average and that it could take time to build a price base even in the fourth quarter. He said it resembles 2022’s "higher-low base" pattern, but there is not yet a confirmation signal like the one seen then.

• Bitcoin developer "Fears that AI will soon break bitcoin cryptography are exaggerated" • Can AI break encryption? Cardano founder says "Vitalik’s claim is baseless speculation"

The security debate was also intense. Justin Drake, an Ethereum researcher, mentioned "bunker mode" while saying AI could neutralise elliptic-curve signatures, and Vitalik Buterin lent weight to the idea that lattice cryptography could be shaken within the next two years. In response, Charles Hoskinson said it was "groundless fear". He argued lattice cryptography has been tested for decades and that reluctance to use it would only delay transitions needed to prepare for quantum computers. Bitcoin developers also said claims of an AI threat were exaggerated. Buterin urged holders to refrain from hasty transfers of funds.

• Era of 24-hour trading coming?... Nasdaq CEO points to tokenisation potential • HSBC tests micropayments by AI agents using tokenised deposits

Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman said in an interview with CNBC at TOKEN2049 in Singapore that tokenising U.S. Treasuries, stocks and money market funds could turn locked-up collateral assets into something "very liquid". She said 24-hour trading was long a demand from retail investors, but institutional demand is now driving tokenisation.

Banks are also moving. HSBC and Ant Digital completed, on a testnet, a technology test in which AI agents use tokenised deposits to find digital services and conduct micropayments. Real-time settlement and risk checks took place together, but they drew a line by saying it was not a commercial launch or a customer-facing service. Other banks, including Santander and Kaisa Bank, also conducted similar tests. A view that payment networks designed around humans must be adapted for the era of AI agents is being met by scepticism that inertia in decades-old clearing systems remains strong.