France announces a 31.4 percent tax on swaps into MiCA stablecoins from 2027

The day away from Cardano and Bitcoin was about tax, banks and finality on other chains. The freshest European line comes from France.

Tax, self-custody, banks

Kriptoteme on 14 October writes about a 31.4 percent tax on swapping crypto into MiCA stablecoins from 1 January 2027. The same package ties self-custody above 100,000 euro to a fine of about $11,600. Chainalysis in that piece warns of an offshore risk. The plenary is set for 20 October. That continues the earlier French line on wallet declarations; it is not a new law already today.

Standard Chartered in the UAE announces direct BTC and ETH trading from bank accounts in Dubai, under VARA, in a closed-loop model with Zodia Markets. BNY and Citadel are testing tokenised US Treasuries as collateral that moves faster from settlement into financing.

Solana, Ripple, the rest of the week

Solana Alpenglow is set for 21 October: replacing TowerBFT, a finality target of about 150 ms, epoch 1064 around 15:00 UTC, Agave 4.3.0. Ripple Privy (Stripe) carries embedded wallets; the XRPL AI Hub records more than 14.3 million transactions, and x402 about 25 percent of activity.

The Ledger CryptoBilis case still carries loss estimates up to $93.2 million and Tether's freeze of $10 million USDT; MediaMarktSaturn halted sales. Blur shuts its web on 12 November. Sberbank from 1 December widens crypto trading to all clients, with crypto payments banned in the RF. The UK High Court on 61,000 BTC strengthens the state's position; an appeal remains.

Sources: Kriptoteme on the French tax, Standard Chartered UAE, Solana Alpenglow, Ripple Privy, Ledger / CryptoBilis, Blur, BNY × Citadel.