Hackers from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, also known as the DPRK or North Korea, have stolen $2.02 billion worth of crypto so far in 2025, a Chainalysis report revealed Thursday, Decrypt.com reported. This represents a 51% increase from last year’s figure, and is the largest year on record for DPRK-related crypto theft. As a whole, crypto has seen $3.4 billion in thefts this year, the report says, meaning that DPRK attacks account for 59% of these stolen funds.

China Vanke’s shares fell after proposals to extend a bond payment were rejected, fueling fears that authorities aren’t keen to step in and keep the developer and its beleaguered peers afloat, the Wall Street Journal reported. The property developer said early Monday that it failed to secure bondholder support for a one-year extension of a bond payment due Monday. Vanke, one of China’s largest real-estate companies, said its three proposals to extend bond payments were rejected. The proposal to extend principal and interest payments was rejected, with 76.7% of holders rejecting it.

Shinsei Trust and Banking is set to issue a yen-based stablecoin next year, in the hopes that it will achieve widespread adoption as a global settlement currency domestically and internationally. With introduction set for the April to June quarter, it's likely to be Japan's first bank-backed stablecoin, the Japan Times reported. "The transition to a 'token economy,' where all real-world assets are tokenized and tokens permeate society as a means of settlement, is now an irreversible societal trend,” SBI Holdings President Yoshitaka Kitao said in a statement on Tuesday.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has set aside an appeal by SEBI, where the markets regulator had asked the tribunal to recover the penalty imposed by it against an entity related to the diversion of funds in the Religare Finvest matter, saying such claims cannot be filed once the liquidation process begins under IBC, the Economic Times of India reported.

China's factory output growth slowed to a 15-month low, while retail sales posted their worst performance since the country abruptly ended its draconian "zero-COVID" curbs, highlighting the urgent need for new growth drivers heading into 2026, Reuters reported. With Beijing's consumer trade-in subsidies fading, a drawn-out property crisis weighing on household spending and industrial investment risking further deflation, officials have leaned on exports to support growth.

Big Japanese manufacturers' business sentiment hit a four-year high in the three months to December, a closely watched survey showed on Monday, reinforcing market expectations the central bank will raise interest rates this week, Reuters reported. But firms expect conditions to worsen three months ahead as they fret over the impact of higher U.S. tariffs and soft consumption, highlighting uncertainty over how far the Bank of Japan (BOJ) could eventually push up borrowing costs.

Do Kwon, a crypto entrepreneur who created two virtual currencies that spectacularly melted down, prompting a market crisis in 2022, was sentenced to 15 years in prison yesterday, the New York Times reported. Kwon became a cautionary tale of crypto hubris when the digital currencies he designed — TerraUSD and Luna — lost all their value practically overnight. The crash caused a chain reaction that led to the collapse of a string of major crypto companies. Mr.

For the past three decades, as China’s economy has developed into a global powerhouse, investment has grown reliably each year. That is about to change, the New York Times. This year, China’s investments in assets like new factories, public infrastructure and housing are expected to fall for the first time since the late 1980s, ushering in a more conservative era for an economy that has reshaped the global order with years of robust growth.

Many of China's newly merged small banks have seen profits fall and capital buffers shrink over the past year, a Reuters review of data showed, testing Beijing's record consolidation drive designed to avert risks in its $8 trillion small banking sector. China's bank consolidation has accelerated, with at least 350 banking licences cancelled in ​2025 as of November, up from 198 in 2024, according to a report by Chinese investment bank China International Capital Corp.