Gate News - On March 21, South Korea's National Tax Service plans to complete the selection of virtual asset custodian service providers in the first half of this year. This initiative stems from a virtual asset theft incident that occurred last month, when the National Tax Service accidentally leaked mnemonic phrase information while announcing the results of an on-site investigation, resulting in the seized virtual assets being stolen twice.

Gate News reported that on March 21, Hong Kong Securities and Futures Professionals Union Chairman Chen Zhihua commented on the controversy surrounding brokers' "pre-registration of designated bank accounts" for customers. He stated that although the regulatory circular proposes establishing a bank account registration mechanism with caps, the related practices may stem from inappropriately applying virtual asset regulatory concepts (such as pre-approval of wallet addresses) to the traditional securities industry.

Police in Wanshan District, Tongren City, Guizhou Province, China have cracked a virtual currency trading fraud case. The victim was defrauded of 7118 USDT, equivalent to over 50,000 yuan. The scammers used read-only wallets and cash displays to gain trust before quickly transferring assets. Police remind the public that virtual currency trading carries high risks and requires careful verification of wallet address authenticity.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission's Q4 2025 report shows that Hong Kong's virtual asset market continues to grow, with listed digital asset ETFs experiencing significant increases in total market value, and tokenized retail money market fund assets under management also rising notably. Fund net inflows surged 118.5%, demonstrating active market conditions.

The Procuratorate of Yuetang District, Xiangtan City, Hunan Province announced a verdict in a money laundering case. Eight defendants were sentenced for concealing telecom fraud proceeds through virtual currency and counterfeit Moutai liquor transactions, with the case involving more than 6.84 million yuan. The criminal group used sophisticated methods to disguise illegal proceeds as legitimate income. They were ultimately discovered by police and subjected to a full-chain crackdown.

South Korea's National Tax Service plans to appoint professional custodian companies to manage seized virtual assets before mid-year to enhance security and address the security breach incident in February. The NTS has established a task force to oversee the transition, improve management processes, and plans to create a digital assets management department.

Gate News: On March 20th, Web3 embodied AI robotics company PrismaX joined NVIDIA's Inception program. Through this program, PrismaX will gain access to development tools, technical resources, training support, priority infrastructure access rights, and support from a broader ecosystem comprised of builders and investors. The Inception program is a free virtual accelerator initiative launched by NVIDIA specifically designed to help startups in the fields of AI, data science, and high-performance computing (HPC) accelerate their growth.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission released a report in 2025 showing that it has joined the Virtual Asset Intelligence Working Group to support the development of digital asset markets. Since 2024, the total market capitalization of virtual asset ETFs listed in Hong Kong has grown to 5.4 billion Hong Kong dollars. Meanwhile, tokenized retail money market funds have also experienced significant growth, with both the overall market's assets under management and the number of funds achieving substantial increases.

Kenya's National Treasury has released draft regulations for Virtual Asset Service Providers, focusing on stablecoin reserves and licensing. A public consultation is open until April 10 for stakeholder feedback.

South Korean police arrested 19 members of a fraud ring suspected of money laundering and seized approximately 6 billion won in criminal proceeds. The gang used an unregistered virtual asset exchange to convert fraud cash into USDT and transfer it overseas, with money laundering amounts reaching hundreds of billions of won.