CoinDesk

Last month, Ethereum reclaimed its title as the leading smart contract blockchain for decentralized exchange (DEX) trading, as the market swoon dampened activity on Solana, the go-to platform for memecoin traders. Ethereum-based DEXes registered an industry-leading cumulative trading volume of $64.616 billion in March, beating Solana’s tally of $52.62 billion by 22%, according to data … Read more

In all likelihood, the move by the Sei Foundation – the organization behind layer1 blockchain Sei – to buy bankrupt genetic data company 23andMe is a long-shot at best, and potentially just a publicity stunt. But, it remains an incredibly exciting idea that has got a lot of people thinking. Were such a deal to … Read more

Bitcoin’s correction may just be getting started. In fact, the crypto sector as a whole could be facing a severe downtrend reminiscent of 2022. “I could see us going back to a five handle by the end of the year,” Quinn Thompson, founder of crypto hedge fund Lekker Capital, told CoinDesk in an interview. A … Read more

The first quarter of 2025 tells a clear story about DeFi’s evolution. While yields across major lending platforms have compressed significantly, innovation at the market’s edges demonstrates DeFi’s continued maturation and growth. The Great Yield Compression DeFi yields have declined sharply across all major lending platforms: The vaults.fyi USD benchmark has fallen below 3.1%, below … Read more

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) withdrew two pieces of crypto-related staff guidance on Friday, further streamlining its approach to crypto regulation. The first advisory rescinded on Friday was Staff Advisory No. 18-14, Advisory with Respect to Virtual Currency Derivative Product Listings. Originally published in May 2018, the advisory established guidelines for crypto-related derivatives, … Read more

A new artificial intelligence-infused blockchain with Andreseen Horowitz’s backing is “ultimately designed as a replacement for Bitcoin,” according to its co-founder Travis Good. The far-fetched claim is rooted in what Good prognosticates as unvarnished reality: Bitcoin’s encryption mechanisms are “getting really stale” and could be “completely obsolete within five years,” creating a business conundrum for … Read more

Circle Internet Financial, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, has reportedly hired investment banks JPMorgan Chase and Citi as the underwriters of a hoped-for IPO, Fortune reported. While timing is not yet totally decided, sources say Circle will publicly file its prospectus in late April, meaning a potential IPO perhaps prior to June. The company … Read more

You’ve probably heard this at a dinner party: “If only we had bought Bitcoin ten years ago.” Now imagine that conversation echoing in the corridors of a central bank, where the stakes are a nation missing one of the most asymmetric financial opportunities of the century. For emerging economies — countries like India, Brazil, Indonesia, … Read more

X2Y2, once a leading marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFT) will shut on April 30, ending a three-year run that saw the exchange briefly trail only OpenSea in trading volume during the NFT boom of 2021. The decision comes as the broader NFT market continues to deflate. Trading volumes have dropped nearly 90% since their peak, … Read more

Still a big fan of digital assets, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink nevertheless said he’s not blind to the possible risks to the U.S. from Bitcoin’s (BTC) rise to prominence. “The U.S. has benefited from the dollar serving as the world’s reserve currency for decades,” said Fink in his annual letter to shareholders.But that’s not guaranteed … Read more

OKX chief legal officer Mauricio Beugelmans has left the cryptocurrency exchange, according to his Linkedin profile. Beugelmans, who has been instrumental in shaping OKX’s global compliance policy, states on his profile that his tenure lasted three years and eight months at the exchange, from August 2021 to March 2025. Just last month, OKX paid over … Read more

Brazil’s top financial policy body banned some pension funds from investing in cryptocurrencies because they are too risky. The National Monetary Council (CMN) forbade closed pension entities known as Entidades Fechadas de Previdência Complementar (EFPCs) from allocating any portion of their guarantee reserves into bitcoin (BTC) or other digital currencies. The EFPCs manage retirement savings … Read more

Japanese hotel firm Metaplanet (3350) has issued a 2 billion yen ($13.3 million) zero-coupon ordinary bond, with proceeds earmarked for additional bitcoin (BTC) purchases. The bond is scheduled to redeem on Sept. 30. In addition, Metaplanet has been added to the BetaShares Crypto Innovators ETF (CRYP), a fund with over $50 billion in assets under … Read more

Economists have long theorized about “perfect markets” — where buyers and sellers operate with complete information, zero transaction costs, and frictionless exchange. Despite technological advances, this ideal remains elusive in today’s fragmented digital economy. Our current commerce landscape is siloed across competing platforms, each creating its own walled garden. Amazon, eBay, and specialized marketplaces for … Read more

Hashgraph, the blockchain development firm focusing on the Hedera (HBAR) network, is building a private, permissioned blockchain for enterprises in highly regulated industries with plans to debut in the third quarter of 2025. HashSphere, built with Hedera’s technology, aims to bridge private and public distributed ledgers, ensuring compliance with regulations while maintaining interoperability, the company … Read more

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index. The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 2496.42, down 3.0% (-78.53) since 4 p.m. ET on Friday. None of the 20 assets are trading higher. Leaders: BTC (-1.4%) and BCH (-1.9%). Laggards: HBAR (-10.8%) and SUI … Read more

Australia-based bitcoin miner IREN is redirecting its growth plans away from BTC mining and towards its AI data centers and AI cloud services businesses. “As we near completion of our 50 EH/s mining expansion, our focus is shifting to the next phase of growth and delivering scalable infrastructure for AI and HPC,” said co-founder and … Read more

The Strategy (MSTR) bitcoin (BTC) acquisition machine continued to roll on last week. The company added 22,048 BTC for $1.92 billion, or an average price of $86,969 each, per a Monday morning filing. Total holdings are now 528,185 bitcoin purchased for $35.63 billion, or an average price of $67,458 each. At the current price around … Read more

Darknet markets are increasingly returning to bitcoin (BTC) as their primary cryptocurrency because of rising liquidity and accessibility challenges associated with privacy-focused coins like monero (XMR), according to Eric Jardine, cybercrime research lead at Chainalysis. “After major exchanges delisted XMR, we observed a significant increase in bitcoin inflows,” Jardine said in an interview with CoinDesk. … Read more

Archax, a U.K.-regulated crypto exchange and custodian focusing on tokenized assets, has acquired a U.S. broker-dealer in an effort to enter the booming institutional market in the country after recent positive changes on the regulatory environment. Globacap Private Markets Inc, a broker-dealer and alternative trading system (ATS) regulated by FINRA and the Securities and Exchanges … Read more

By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) With trade tensions escalating, Asian and European stocks extended last week’s declines. Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 4%, taking it into correction territory after dropping more than 10% from its record high and European indexes including the FTSE 100, DAX, and CAC 40 opened in the … Read more

AUSTRAC, Australia’s anti-money laundering watchdog, put crypto ATM providers on notice for not complying with required standards. “AUSTRAC’s cryptocurrency taskforce has found that some crypto ATM providers may not have the right anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism (AML/CTF) checks in place,” the financial intelligence agency said in a release on Monday. Crypto ATM providers need to … Read more

CoinShares’ Valkyrie Bitcoin Mining (WGMI) exchange-traded fund (ETF) is the worst-performing ETF of 2025, down 43% year-to-date, according to Senior Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas. The ETF is made up of several publicly traded bitcoin (BTC) miners. IREN (IREN) is the largest holding at 15%, which is down 42%. Core Scientific (CORZ) follows with a … Read more

The Trump family is deepening its involvement in cryptocurrency with a major move into bitcoin (BTC) mining, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are merging their firm, American Data Centers, with a new mining venture called American Bitcoin, taking a 20% stake in the company. The remaining 80% … Read more

Ether (ETH) has dropped 39% this year relative to bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency, taking the ratio between the two to the lowest in almost five years as a riskier macroeconomic environment weighs on the second-largest cryptocurrency. At the current level, 1 ETH is the equivalent of 0.02191 BTC. That’s the least since May 2020, … Read more

Faint hopes of dogecoin (DOGE) being included in the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) were dented on Sunday as the department’s figurehead Elon Musk squashed any plans of adding the memecoin. “There are no plans for the government to use dogecoin or anything,” Musk said during a speech at the America PAC town hall … Read more

Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) plans to reclassify cryptocurrencies as financial products under new rules, aimed at curbing insider trading in the digital asset market, per a Nikkei report on Sunday. The move comes as part of a broader effort to strengthen oversight in Japan’s crypto ecosystem, which has witnessed growing adoption alongside a rise … Read more

Bitcoin is making its way from trading desks to corporate treasuries, and by the end of the decade, it could be standard practice, according to one analyst. “Across all the different strategies and implementations, I anticipate that by 2030, a quarter of the S&P 500 will have BTC somewhere on their balance sheets as a … Read more

It’s a bloodbath for digital assets, with traders hitting the sell button, wiping out over $160 billion of the total cryptocurrency market cap since Friday. Few things have compounded as the first quarter of this year closes out, leading to the sell-off, including Trump’s tariff threats, global economic concerns and the lack of a clear … Read more