Historical roundup: originally published by Cointelegraph on November 9, 2026, at 21:36:56 UTC+8.
Europe’s push for common tokenized-securities standards, a proposal for faster Zcash confirmations and reported Binance France account closures were the main developments in this roundup. Each carries a different caveat: the EU standards remain under development, Zcash’s latest change is a proposal, and the Binance details come from media reports citing customer emails.
EU seeks a common framework for tokenized securities
The European Central Bank, European Commission and European Securities and Markets Authority are seeking nominations for an industry-led European Tokenisation Standards Group (ETSG). Its task is to draft common technical and market standards for holding and settling tokenized securities.
EU industry associations, global institutions, private firms and fintech companies can apply by November 27, 2026. Work is scheduled to begin in January 2027, with an initial set of standards targeted for early 2028. The three EU institutions will participate as observers, according to a release published Monday.
The standards are intended to help different distributed ledger technology platforms work with one another and with existing financial systems. They will support Appia, the Eurosystem initiative developing a blueprint for Europe’s tokenized financial markets.
The institutions warned that fragmentation could limit tokenization’s benefits. The group may also recommend ways for EU authorities to encourage adoption of its standards. This is a standard-setting effort—not evidence that interoperability has already been achieved.
The roundup also noted that the Eurosystem launched Pontes in September, allowing financial institutions to settle wholesale transactions in tokenized assets using central bank money.
Zcash proposal targets 20-second blocks—not more daily private-transaction capacity
Developers ValarDragon and Evan Forbes submitted a draft Zcash Improvement Proposal on GitHub on Sunday to reduce the target block interval from 25 seconds to 20 seconds. They want the change included in the next community poll and considered for the upcoming NU7.1 upgrade.
According to the proposal, shorter intervals would reduce the expected wait for initial confirmations, improving the experience for point-of-sale payments, exchange deposits and cross-chain swaps. The developers said it would not increase overall daily capacity for private transactions, and Zcash’s existing issuance schedule would remain intact.
The proposal followed Friday’s activation of NU7 on mainnet, which reduced the target block interval from 75 seconds to 25 seconds. NU7 also introduced a Network Sustainability Mechanism designed to recycle a portion of transaction fees into future mining rewards while preserving the 21 million ZEC supply cap.
The distinction matters: NU7 had activated, but the further reduction to 20 seconds was still a proposal.
Reports: Binance France accounts to close December 31
Cryptoast, Crypto Briefing and other outlets reported on Saturday that Binance France had emailed customers in early November about closing all accounts on December 31, 2026.
According to those reports, which cited Binance customer emails, accounts retaining assets would face a monthly maintenance fee starting November 29. The fee would be 0.025% of the balance, with a minimum of 10 USDC, a stablecoin tracking the US dollar.
The exchange said withdrawals needed to be completed by November 29 to avoid the fees. The fee start date therefore preceded the reported account-closure date.