The Bank of Korea is not standing in the way of a won-pegged stablecoin, but the country’s central bank governor says such a move could make managing foreign exchange more difficult.

Kraken has launched a new bitcoin staking feature that lets users lock up their BTC directly on the native Bitcoin blockchain, the crypto exchange said Wednesday. 

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino says the era of storing passwords in the cloud should come to an end, as he announced his firm will soon launch PearPass, a fully local, open-source password manager that avoids cloud storage altogether.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• South Korea Signals Openness to Stablecoins
• Kraken Adds Native Bitcoin Staking Through Babylon
• Tether CEO Calls for End to Cloud Storage, Announces Local Password Manager After Record Data Breach

South Korea Signals Openness to Stablecoins

The Bank of Korea is not standing in the way of a won-pegged stablecoin, but the country’s central bank governor says such a move could make managing foreign exchange more difficult.

Governor Rhee Chang-yong told reporters this week that issuing a won-based stablecoin could unintentionally increase reliance on U.S. dollar-backed tokens. 

“A won-based stablecoin could make it easier to exchange them with dollar stablecoin rather than working to reduce use of dollar stablecoin,” Rhee said, noting the added pressure this could place on South Korea’s ability to manage its foreign reserves.

The comments come as South Korea’s newly elected president, Lee Jae-myung, pushes forward with a broader crypto regulation agenda. The country’s foreign exchange reserves fell from $415.6 billion at the end of December to $404.6 billion in May, raising concerns about long-term currency stability.

Kraken Adds Native Bitcoin Staking Through Babylon

Kraken has launched a new bitcoin staking feature that lets users lock up their BTC directly on the native Bitcoin blockchain, the crypto exchange said Wednesday. 

The service runs through an integration with Babylon, a protocol designed to bring staking to Bitcoin without requiring tokens to leave the chain.

Babylon allows users to stake their BTC to help secure proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains, and in return, participants receive rewards in BABY, the native token of Babylon Genesis, a Bitcoin-secured Layer 1 network.

“Clients can earn a return on their BTC while enabling emerging PoS blockchains to benefit from the economic weight of bitcoin,” said Kraken’s head of consumer Mark Greenberg.

Users must lock their BTC in a custodial vault to participate. Users can unstake their coins with a roughly 7-day wait.

Tether CEO Calls for End to Cloud Storage, Announces Local Password Manager After Record Data Breach

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino says the era of storing passwords in the cloud should come to an end, as he announced his firm will soon launch PearPass, a fully local, open-source password manager that avoids cloud storage altogether.

“The cloud has failed us. Again,” he wrote, referencing what experts are calling the largest data breach in history. Over 16 billion passwords tied to platforms like Apple, Google and Facebook were leaked this week, with security researchers warning that the breach could be a roadmap for widespread cyberattacks.

PearPass is designed to sidestep those risks entirely. The tool will store all passwords and encryption keys on the user’s own device, eliminating exposure to centralized servers. “No cloud. No servers. No leaks. Ever,” Ardoino wrote.

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