The European Union’s push for shared tokenized-securities standards, a proposal for faster Zcash confirmations and reports of Binance France account closures highlight three distinct issues: market interoperability, payment usability and exchange access.
This historical roundup reflects Cointelegraph’s reporting published on Nov. 9, 2026, at 21:36:56 UTC+8. The proposals and deadlines below are presented in that original reporting context.
EU seeks common standards for tokenized securities
The European Central Bank, European Commission and European Securities and Markets Authority sought nominations for an industry-led European Tokenisation Standards Group (ETSG), according to a release published Nov. 9.
EU industry associations, global institutions, private firms and fintech companies were eligible to apply by Nov. 27, 2026. Work was scheduled to begin in January 2027, with an initial set of standards targeted for early 2028. The three EU institutions would participate as observers.
The group’s remit is to develop technical and market standards for holding and settling tokenized securities across different distributed ledger technology platforms, while enabling those platforms to work with existing financial systems. Its standards would support Appia, the Eurosystem initiative to develop a blueprint for Europe’s tokenized financial markets.
The institutions warned that fragmentation could limit tokenization’s benefits. The group could also recommend ways for EU authorities to encourage adoption of its standards.
The initiative concerns the infrastructure behind tokenized securities—not evidence, by itself, of wider market adoption. The source also reported that the Eurosystem launched Pontes in September 2026, allowing financial institutions to settle wholesale transactions in tokenized assets using central bank money.
Zcash developers propose 20-second blocks
Zcash developers ValarDragon and Evan Forbes submitted a draft Zcash Improvement Proposal on GitHub on Nov. 8, seeking to reduce the network’s target block interval from 25 seconds to 20 seconds. They wanted the proposal 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 an initial transaction confirmation, improving usability for point-of-sale payments, exchange deposits and cross-chain swaps.
The developers said the change would not increase overall daily capacity for private transactions and would preserve the existing issuance schedule despite more frequent blocks. Faster initial confirmations and greater transaction capacity are therefore separate claims here.
The proposal followed the Nov. 6 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 Zcash’s 21 million ZEC supply cap. The further reduction to 20 seconds remained a proposal at the time of reporting.
Reports: Binance France accounts to close Dec. 31
Cryptoast, Crypto Briefing and other media reported on Nov. 7, citing Binance emails sent to users in early November, that Binance France would close all accounts on Dec. 31, 2026.
According to those reports, accounts retaining assets would incur monthly maintenance fees beginning Nov. 29, 2026. The stated charge was 0.025% of the balance, with a minimum of 10 USDC, a stablecoin tracking the US dollar. The exchange said withdrawals had to be completed by Nov. 29 to avoid fees.
Original article: Cointelegraph — “Here’s what happened in crypto today”
