Welcome back to Continuum Weekly News. Every Friday we pull the top Asia headlines on digital-asset regulation, cyber risk, industry moves and insurance signals, with concise takeaways and practical actions for insurers and corporate risk teams.
1) Regulatory
• South Korea / stablecoin & spot-ETF push — the 2026 growth plan signals an accelerated Phase-2 digital-asset legislative drive—expect a stablecoin framework and moves to enable spot crypto ETFs, which will raise on-shore licensing and bank-involvement checks for counterparties.
• Japan / “digital year” & exchange integration — senior ministers framed 2026 as a push to fold digital assets into regulated exchanges and capital markets, increasing demand for formal custody, audit trails and exchange-level transparency from Japan-facing counterparties.
2) Hacking & Physical Risks
• Flow ecosystem exploit & exchange reaction— a FLOW-related exploit and subsequent exchange delisting/flags drew rapid remediation action and token-level containment steps early in the week (project recovery work ongoing). This is a reminder that protocol-level bugs still force exchanges and custodians into emergency operations.
• Ransomware surge into the new year— early-January telemetry showed dozens of newly reported ransomware victims globally (many APAC-relevant), underlining persistent extortion and operational disruption risk.
3) Industry & Markets
• Largest ETF inflow in three months — institutional bid returns— spot/ETF flows pushed BTC higher in the first week of January, signalling renewed institutional demand that will affect custody sizing and liquidity management for APAC platforms.
• Tokenisation & live-trial signals in analysis coverage —industry commentary this week emphasised pilots moving toward real-world settlement use-cases—useful context for custodians and PSPs planning proof-of-operations.
4) Insurance Spotlight
• Reinsurance / sidecar capacity moves at Jan 1 renewals— reinsurer/sidecar announcements and commentary this week signalled incremental capital available in APAC
• Cyber market signals — softening at renewals but tighter controls — broker/reinsurance notes around the Jan renewals showed softer pricing in places (more capital) while underwriters still demand stronger evidence of controls and incident governance.
