CoinDesk

This article is part of a four-piece series on El Salvador. You can find the previous dispatch, a story on Bitcoin Berlín, here. Bitcoin City sounds like a modern El Dorado — a dreamlike enclave in the jungle, a 21st century utopia. Announced by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in 2021, the metropolis will supposedly … Read more

Popular non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea said Thursday that it is expanding its platform to crypto trading and confirmed it is planning to distribute SEA tokens to users. The trading platform called OS2 has launched today, and aggregates marketplaces, allows cross-chain purchasing and offers lower fees in the beginning, according to the protocol’s press release. … 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 3191.13, down 1.0% (-32.82) since 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday. Three of 20 assets are trading higher. Leaders: APT (+1.3%) and AAVE (+0.9%). Laggards: NEAR (-3.1%) and AVAX (-2.6%). … Read more

Inflation at the wholesale level came in faster than forecast last month in another disappointment to investors and policymakers hoping for cooling price pressures. The Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 0.4% in January versus economist forecasts for 0.3% and 0.2% in December. On a year-over-year basis, PPI was higher by 3.5% against estimates for 3.2% … Read more

Midas, a protocol for issuing yield-bearing tokens backed by U.S. Treasuries and other assets, has introduced Liquid Yield Tokens (LYT) linked to actively managed, decentralized finance (DeFi) funds, starting out with Edge Capital, RE7, and MEV Capital. Late last year, Midas received regulatory approval to issue its basis trade and U.S. Treasuries tokens in Liechtenstein, … Read more

BNB Chain’s BNB token and PancakeSwap’s CAKE bucked low-volatility market conditions to rally 9.3% and 35% respectively even as bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency, remained rangebound at $96,200. CAKE has more than doubled over the past seven days, a move coinciding with a spike in trading volume, with $1.1 billion being notched in the past … Read more

Robinhood (HOOD) shares surged in pre-market activity Thursday after the popular trading app reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street estimates driven by a massive jump in crypto revenue. The company reported $358 million in crypto transaction revenue in the quarter, the highest contribution from digital-asset trading to date, Wall Street bank JPMorgan (JPM) said … Read more

By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) After Wednesday’s unexpectedly high consumer price inflation (CPI) figures, all eyes now turn to the produce price report due at 8:30 a.m. Analysts expect year-over-year PPI to come in at 3.2%, below December’s 3.3%, with a month-on-month reading of 0.3%, up from 0.2%. Core PPI, … Read more

U.S. spot-listed bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have seen three consecutive days of outflows totaling $494 million. Wednesday’s outflows were the largest of the three, with $251 million, which saw BlackRock’s iShares Trust (IBIT) register a $22.1 million outflow, with Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) registering the largest outflow of $102 million, according to … Read more

Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) is holding talks with Indian authorities in an effort to secure approval to return to the country it quit in 2023, Tech Crunch reported on Wednesday. The exchange is in talks with regulators including the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), Tech Crunch said, citing two people familiar with the matter. “Coinbase is … Read more

Metaplanet (3350), a Japanese bitcoin (BTC) acquirer, will be added to the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Japan index at the end of Feb. 28, according to the firm’s CEO Simon Gerovich. The MSCI index tracks mid-to-large-cap Japanese stocks, which serve as a key benchmark for institutional investors worldwide. As a result of inclusion, Metaplanet … Read more

Bitcoin (BTC) miner Riot Platforms appointed three new directors to its board as it explores potential opportunities in artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). The additions include Michael Turner, former president of Oxford Properties and global head of real estate at OMERS, one of Canada’s largest pension funds, alongside Jaime Leverton, ex-CEO of Hut … Read more

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Ben Schiller, CoinDesk’s Opinion and Features editor. In this issue: Can Based Rollups solve Ethereum’s problem? Lido goes modular Uniswap finally unveils Unichain Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade is coming Network news BASED ROLLUPS TO THE RESCUE: In recent years, … Read more

Popular trading platform Robinhood (HOOD) beat its fourth-quarter earnings and revenue estimates, which could have positive read-through for peer Coinbase (COIN). Robinhood said its fourth-quarter revenue rose 115% from the previous year to $1.01 billion, beating Wall Street analysts’ estimate of $945.8 million, according to FactSet data. Its transaction-based revenue rose 200% from the previous … Read more

Circle’s USDC, the second-largest stablecoin on the market, rose to a record market capitalization over $56 billion this week as stablecoin growth showed signs of reaccelerating. USDC added $10.2 billion to its market cap over the past month, driven primarily by rising Solana-based DeFi trading volumes, Artemis data shows. That’s more than double the $4.6 … Read more

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) likely doesn’t have jurisdiction over many of the memecoins flooding the crypto market, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said in a Tuesday interview with Bloomberg. “We always have to look at the facts and circumstances, but many of the memecoins that are out there probably do not have a … Read more

President Donald Trump is just about done naming the key figures he’s seeking to get into financial regulation posts that will direct the future oversight of the crypto industry, now including lawyer Jonathan Gould as a nominee to run the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that oversees U.S. national banks. With a widely … Read more

Crypto mid-caps are struggling. While some digital asset investors may seek hidden gems and future powerhouses in the next tier of market capitalization and liquidity, that pursuit has generally not been rewarded. Furthermore, mid-caps have delivered significantly higher volatility. Less reward, more risk. What gives? Is this a mirror of “Mag 7” dominance in equities, … Read more

In traditional finance, the “risk-free rate,” the interest rate an investor can expect to earn on an investment that carries zero risk, serves as a fundamental benchmark for all investment decisions. Today, DeFi has quietly established its own equivalent: the base rate for lending stablecoins. Through battle-tested protocols like Morpho and Aave, lenders can now … Read more

Franklin Templeton has made the OnChain U.S. Government Money Market Fund (FOBXX), the third-largest tokenized money market fund, available on Solana in another signal of growing interest in the blockchain. The fund is already available on Ethereum, Coinbase’s Base, Aptos and Avalanche, which were all added last year. The Stellar network functions as the primary … Read more

Alexander Vinnik, the jailed former operator of once mighty bitcoin exchange BTC-e, is being released from U.S. custody as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia. Vinnik, 44, is being swapped with jailed American teacher Marc Fogel, who returned to the U.S. last night after negotiators struck a surprise breakthrough with the Kremlin. It had … 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 3136.62, down 0.6% (-20.46) since 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday. Six of 20 assets are trading higher. Leaders: APT (+1.8%) and DOT (+1.7%). Laggards: LTC (-4.7%) and HBAR (-3.9%). … Read more

If you asked a cypherpunk in the 1990s about their worst-case scenario for the future of money, they probably would have described something very close to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). The fight against financial surveillance was fundamental for Bitcoin’s early instigators, and CBDCs go against everything they stand for: privacy, decentralization and individual sovereignty. … Read more

The fourth quarter was a good one for crypto and Wall Street analysts expect leading U.S. exchange Coinbase (COIN) to have posted a big jump in earnings from the prior three months. Revenue for the fourth quarter is expected to have been $1.8 billion, according to FactSet, up from $1.26 billion in the third quarter. … Read more

Bitcoin Twitter (or Bitcoin X) is having a moment after a 13F filing by Goldman Sachs (GS) disclosed higher stakes in a handful of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), but the facts are less than meets the eye. First and foremost, ownership of the ETFs isn’t exactly a bet by the Goldman trading floor on … Read more

The Ethereum community has been in turmoil over the past few weeks, with members raising the alarm that the chain will lose its competitive edge if it doesn’t address some core design issues. A key focus of the outrage has been layer-2 fragmentation. In recent years, Ethereum has embraced a layer-2 scaling roadmap—a plan that … Read more

In El Salvador, about two hours away from the capital, up in the mountains, lies a town named Berlín. It’s a mid-sized city by Salvadoran standards, with a population of roughly 20,000. It has a bank, law firms, police, food stores, hardware stores, bars, restaurants, hotels, pharmacies, clinics, churches — and one of the largest … Read more

U.S. inflation unexpectedly marched higher in January, sending crypto and traditional markets sharply lower. The closely-watched Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.5% in January versus an expected 0.3% and December’s 0.4% pace. On a year-over-year basis, CPI was higher by 3.0% against forecasts for 2.9% and 2.9% in December. The so-called core CPI, which excludes … Read more

The X account of Semler Scientific chairman Eric Semler has seemingly been compromised, with various posts from it pointing to the supposed creation of a Solana-based token under the same trading symbol that the firm trades under at Nasdaq. The account shared a post suggesting that the token is looking to bridge “institutional-grade Bitcoin exposure … Read more

Crypto markets slid 3% in the past 24 hours as traders await U.S. consumer price index (CPI) readings expected later Wednesday, with some expecting a dollar slide in a move that may bump up crypto prices. Bitcoin (BTC) lost 1.3%, while majors ether (ETH), Solana’s SOL, Cardano’s ADA and XRP lost as much as 3%. … Read more