The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has released its e-HKD Pilot Programme Phase 2 Report, developed with analytical input from Deloitte. The report examines how central bank digital currencies and digital money forms could transform Hong Kong's financial infrastructure. It covers settlement efficiency, programmable payments, and offline functionality across 11 industry partnerships in banking, payments, and technology sectors.

Standard Chartered forecasts tokenized real-world assets could achieve a $2 trillion market capitalization by 2028, according to a report released Thursday. The projection represents a 57-fold increase from the current $35.5 billion valuation. DeFi infrastructure expansion and stablecoin adoption are expected to drive growth, though regulatory clarity remains a critical factor.

Mastercard is in advanced negotiations to acquire Zero Hash, a regulated crypto-settlement platform, for approximately $1.5 to $2 billion, according to Reuters. Zero Hash processes tokenized fund flows for issuers including BlackRock and Franklin Templeton across twenty-two blockchains. The acquisition would integrate stablecoin settlement capabilities into Mastercard's global payments network, enabling T+0 settlement while maintaining regulatory compliance.

Standard Chartered Bank projects the tokenized real-world asset market will grow from approximately $35 billion to $2 trillion by end-2028, a 5,600% increase. Geoffrey Kendrick, head of digital assets research at the bank, expects Ethereum to capture the majority of this activity due to its decade-long mainnet reliability without outages. The forecast excludes stablecoins and mirrors the bank's stablecoin market cap projection in scale and timeframe.

Garden Finance has rejected reports of a $5.5 million protocol hack, stating only a third-party solver was affected and user funds remain secure. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT presented on-chain evidence suggesting the breach impacted multiple blockchains, according to a message recorded on Ethereum block 23,690,488. The platform remains offline as investigations continue.

Garden Finance suffered a cross-chain bridge attack that drained at least $5.5 million across multiple blockchains including Arbitrum and Solana. The protocol's native SEED token dropped 64% following the breach. Blockchain investigators suspect the DPRK-linked hacker group "Dangerous Password" may be responsible for the exploit.

Garden Finance suffered a security breach resulting in losses exceeding $10.8 million across multiple blockchain networks. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT revealed that over 25% of the platform's historical transaction volume involved assets stolen from major hacks, including the Bybit incident. The platform has faced criticism for allegedly facilitating illicit fund flows.

Mastercard is in final-stage negotiations to acquire Zerohash, a B2B crypto infrastructure provider, in a deal valued at around $2 billion, Fortune reported citing five sources. Zerohash enables financial institutions to integrate stablecoin and digital-asset services without building proprietary backends. The deal has not yet been finalized.