In Moldova, the first step has been taken towards creating a long-term investment institution – the launch of the covered bond market. This is much more than simply the introduction of yet another complex financial instrument. It is a systemic shift that is steering the country’s entire economic model away from short-term planning and onto the path of long-term, strategic development.
North Korean hackers may be behind the largest cryptocurrency theft in history, amounting to around $6.3 billion. The analytics firm TRM Labs reports that the attack on the Binance exchange was likely carried out by the TraderTraitor group, which is linked to the North Korean hacking network Lazarus. Experts consider this theory to be highly plausible, although there has been no official confirmation as yet. Neither Binance nor the law enforcement agencies have named the alleged organisers of the attack.
On Moldova’s interbank foreign exchange market, the first ten days of October saw mixed trends in key currencies. According to data from the National Bank of Moldova (NBM), the Moldovan leu began to weaken moderately against the US dollar, whilst at the same time continuing to strengthen against the euro.
In Moldova, police prevented a 66-year-old woman from losing her flat; fraudsters had allegedly persuaded her to sell her property and transfer the proceeds to ‘safe accounts’.
The Kyrgyz government has wound up the state-backed stablecoin USDKG (United States Dollar Kyrgyzstan), which was launched last November.
Yields on government bonds (VMS) in Moldova are rising compared with previous periods. As part of the announced autumn round of direct subscription for individuals on the eVMS.md platform, the Ministry of Finance offered fixed interest rates ranging from 7.65 per cent to 8.05 per cent per annum. By way of comparison, last autumn the maximum rate on three-year bonds stood at around 7 per cent.
In the first six months of 2026, the capital market showed mixed performance. The key trend of the half-year was unprecedented growth in the primary market, driven by a surge in business interest in issuing corporate bonds, whilst trading activity in the secondary market declined moderately.
The International Stock Exchange of Moldova (BIMx) was officially launched in Chișinău as part of the Capital Market Forum 2026. This long-awaited event for the country’s financial system took place on the sidelines of the 11th annual Moldova Business Week 2026 forum, which brought together investors and business representatives from more than 50 countries.
Moldova is introducing a regulatory ‘sandbox’ for tokenised assets based on the European model. A new draft law on market infrastructures based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) is being prepared for submission. The draft has already been drawn up by the National Commission for the Financial Market and forwarded to the Ministry of Finance for public consultation.
The number of cryptocurrency users in Russia stands at 20 million, whilst the total value of their investments in cryptocurrencies amounts to ₽3.7 trillion (780 billion Moldovan lei). This estimate was provided on 21 September by Ivan Chebeskov, Deputy Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation. This figure includes both direct holdings of digital currencies and financial products linked to them.
