China warns on crypto and Singapore’s crypto activity jumps 55.4% to $284 billion in year ended June 2026

Beijing has again tied cryptocurrencies to crime, espionage, and national security, this time by calling them “accomplices” in intelligence work. At the same time, Singapore has reclaimed the top spot in Central and Southeast Asia and Oceania (CSAO) crypto activity, while South Korea is now floating a market-making framework after a stablecoin price blowout on Upbit.

1. China’s Ministry of State Security said crypto is used to facilitate money laundering and cyberattacks, and described cryptocurrencies as “accomplices” in espionage. The agency also said crypto transactions are not really anonymous, and warned that “overseas anti-China hostile forces” use digital assets to disrupt financial order and harm national security.
2. The ministry’s message was aimed at the usual fantasy that blockchain somehow erases the paper trail. According to the South China Morning Post, the MSS said overseas intelligence agencies may try to recruit spies by claiming virtual currency circulation is hard to verify, which is a neat way of saying: don’t assume crypto is a blind spot for the authorities.
3. China has already taken the blunt-force approach to the sector. It banned crypto multiple times, imposed a comprehensive ban on exchanges in 2017, followed with a mining ban in 2021, and has declared all crypto businesses illegal.
4. Singapore’s crypto activity rose 55.4% to $284 billion in the year ended June 2026, according to Chainalysis, even as the broader CSAO region contracted 6.8% over the same period. That put Singapore back at the top of Central and Southeast Asia and Oceania (CSAO) after it regained the region’s largest crypto economy title.
5. Chainalysis said the Singapore growth was driven mainly by institutional platform activity, which increased 94% to $60 billion. The activity was concentrated among a small number of market makers, over-the-counter trading firms, and institutional brokerages, with growth coming from existing platforms rather than a wave of new entrants.
6. South Korea’s Financial Services Commission said it is considering a market-making system for digital assets after a yen-backed stablecoin, JPYC, traded at up to four times its peg on Upbit earlier this month. Upbit opened JPYC trading on Sept. 17 at 12 Korean won per JPYC, and the price later hit 37.6 Korean won within an hour, with the spike blamed on limited liquidity.

For PSPs and exchanges, the useful takeaway is not the rhetoric itself but the operating map it draws. China is treating crypto as a national-security problem; Singapore remains the institutional center of gravity in CSAO; and South Korea is now looking at market structure fixes after liquidity in a single stablecoin pair went sideways fast.