Bitcoin rose above $98,000 during Thursday’s Asian trading hours after Eric Trump, son of U.S. President Donald Trump, encouraged BTC investment on X. “[It] feels like a great time to enter BTC,” Eric Trump posted on X at 1:41 UTC, following which, BTC prices rose from $96,900 to $97,830. The micro CME futures topped the … Read more
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s legal campaign against prediction market platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi can’t just be shut down, according to Caroline Pham, the acting agency chairman put in place by President Donald Trump. Pham said the agency will gather experts for a roundtable meeting, probably next month, that can build a … 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: Ethereum’s Wall Street cheerleader Avalanche cuts fees by 75% Arbitrum integrates Bitcoin UBS tests ZKSync for gold This article is featured in the latest issue of The Protocol, our … Read more
Strategy (MSTR) reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $3.03 per share, compared to income of $0.50 per share a year earlier. The loss incurred as the company took an impairment charge on its 471,107 token bitcoin (BTC) holdings. Those holdings are worth more than $45 billion at bitcoin’s current price just above $97,000. For 2025, … Read more
Decentralized crypto trading engine Raydium is making a bid for Solana’s multibillion dollar perpetuals market – and gaining traction fast. Raydium’s weeks-old foray into offering these hyper-popular derivatives contracts – they allow crypto traders to speculate on price swings without holding the actual token – is already racking up $100 million in daily trading volume. … Read more
MicroStrategy (MSTR) has changed its name to Strategy in a move to simplify its brand and reflect the focus of the company, it announced Wednesday. Strategy’s new logo includes the famous Bitcoin “B”, signaling the company’s Bitcoin Treasury Strategy, and the name’s new primary color is orange. “This brand simplification is a natural evolution of … Read more
The world’s largest asset management firm with more than $10 trillion in AUM, Blackrock (BLK) plans on listing a bitcoin exchange traded product (ETP) in Europe, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. The fund would be based in Switzerland and BlackRock could start marketing it as soon as this month, according to the report. This would be … Read more
As U.S. senators prepared to gather for a hearing about U.S. debanking of crypto clients, the interim chief of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said his agency is overhauling its digital assets supervision and revealed more correspondence on Wednesday in which FDIC officials steered banks away from cryptocurrency business. Travis Hill, the acting FDIC chairman … Read more
Gold-backed cryptocurrencies are outperforming the wider market amid a historic rally for the precious metal, which is up around 9.7% so far this year to a new record of $2,880 per ounce amid growing trade war tensions. PAX gold (PAXG) and Tether gold (XAUT) have benefitted greatly from the precious metal’s rise, both rising roughly … Read more
The price of bitcoin (BTC) could balloon to $500,000 by 2028, lifted by increased investor access and diminishing volatility that will help keep it serving as a unique hedge against issues plaguing traditional finance, according to Standard Chartered. The largest cryptocurrency is likely to become less volatile as the year-old U.S. exchange-traded fund (ETF) market … Read more
For decades, corporate treasuries have relied on cash, bonds and short-term investments to preserve capital. But inflation, devaluing fiat currencies and near-zero interest rates have challenged this approach. A new dark horse is emerging and corporate finance is about to change forever. BTC as a corporate reserve asset Historically, corporations have kept substantial cash reserves … Read more
Bitcoin (BTC) tumbled over the weekend, sinking well below the $100K mark as markets reacted to the latest escalation in the U.S. trade disputes. The broader digital asset market followed suit, leading to one of the most significant sell-offs since the outbreak of Covid and the collapse of FTX. Specifically, President Donald Trump announced sweeping … Read more
Two venture-backed veterans of crypto’s data storage subsector, Textile and 3Box Labs, the builder of Ceramic, have merged in an all-stock deal, CoinDesk has learned. The companies will operate under Textile’s brand and retain their staff and data infrastructure- focused product lines. Textile CEO Andrew Hill will head the merged organization. Self-described “friendly competitors,” Textile … Read more
The governance foundation for decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem 0G has unveiled an $88 million fund for the creation of AI applications. The 0G Foundation is seeking submissions from teams developing decentralized finance (DeFi), on-chain data marketplaces for secure data sharing, AI-driven gaming and social applications, according to an emailed announcement Wednesday. The fund is … Read more
“Debanking” has become a buzzword in Washington lately. The term refers to a controversial practice where crypto companies and other businesses have been cut off from banking services, allegedly due to pressure from federal regulators. Many in our industry have dubbed this “Operation Chokepoint 2.0,” comparing it to a previous Obama-era initiative that discouraged banks … 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 3310.92, up 0.2% (+5.24) since 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday. Fourteen of 20 assets are trading higher. Leaders: AAVE (+6.9%) and LTC (+3.7%). Laggards: XRP (-1.2%) and SUI (-1.2%). … Read more
The average withdrawal price of bitcoin (BTC) from exchanges in 2025 currently stands at $100,356. At present, bitcoin is trading just below this level, hovering around $98,000. The concern arises when bitcoin falls below the average withdrawal price for a sustained period of time, as this can often trigger continued selling and more downward price … Read more
The ransomware business took a hit in 2024, with payments falling 35% year-over-year, according to a new report from Chainalysis. Though the number of ransomware attacks increased in 2024, ransomware gangs made less money, pulling in $814 million compared to 2023’s record-high sum of $1.25 billion. The blockchain analytics firm attributes the decline to a … Read more
Gold (XAU) is reaffirming its status as a safe haven asset amid ongoing fears of a U.S.-led trade war, while bitcoin (BTC) struggles to gather upside traction. The dynamic is driving the bitcoin-gold ratio lower. The ratio between bitcoin’s USD price and gold’s per ounce dollar price has dropped to 34, the lowest since Nov. … Read more
U.S.-listed spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have seen a 175% year-over-year increase in almost the first three weeks of trading. In 2025, from Jan. 13 to Feb. 5, net inflows equaled $4.4 billion, while the 2024 net inflows for the first three weeks equaled $1.6 billion. The spot bitcoin ETFs were one of the … Read more
By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) The crypto market has turned somber, with major cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), solana (SOL), Binance coin (BNB) and chainlink (LINK) trading as much as 3% lower, amid frustration over the slow progress on the creation of a U.S. strategic BTC reserve and signs … Read more
Crypto exchange Bullish Global is considering selling shares to the public for the first time at some point during 2025, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The company, which owns CoinDesk, is working with Jefferies Financial Group on the potential listing, Bloomberg said. Talks of an initial public offering (IPO) comes as the … Read more
The XRP Ledger (XRPL) was briefly unavailable early Wednesday as a consensus mechanism design led to a temporary halt in network operations. The incident began when the network’s consensus process appeared to function, but validations were not being published, causing the network’s ledgers to “drift apart.” In the XRP Ledger, consensus among validators is crucial … Read more
Blockstream, the crypto company co-founded by legendary bitcoin (BTC) developer Adam Back, is expanding its global presence with the opening of a new office in Tokyo, the company said in a press release on Wednesday. The company will be partnering in the region with Diamond Hands, Japan’s leading Bitcoin strategic consultancy, and investment firm Fulgur … Read more
The relationship between stocks and crypto markets is likely to weaken in the future, Wall Street bank Citi (C) said in a research report Monday. While equities have been and remain the most important macro driver of crypto markets, the “equity-crypto correlation is likely to fall over time as the nascent asset class matures, the … Read more
Ondo Finance, a leading tokenized real-world asset (RWA) issuer, has unveiled a new offering to accelerate the onboarding of traditional assets to blockchain technology. Ondo on Tuesday introduced Ondo Global Markets (Ondo GM), a platform dedicated to providing onchain access to stocks, bonds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The specific details regarding which stocks, bonds, and … Read more
The Bitcoin network hashrate, a proxy for competition in the industry and mining difficulty, rose slightly in January, Wall Street bank JPMorgan (JPM) said in a research report on Monday. The monthly average network hashrate rose 1% to 785 exahashes per second (EH/s), the bank noted, while mining difficulty fell 2% month-on-month. The month-end, weekly … Read more
Since early 2023, Bitcoin (BTC) has chalked out a classic stairstep bull run, characterized by incremental price increases followed by periods of consolidation that set the stage for the next move higher. The cryptocurrency’s ongoing price consolidation between $90,000 and $100,000 is the third of the broader bull run from $20,000. The consensus is that … Read more
Bitcoin (BTC) mining company Bitdeer announced today that it had acquired a 101-MW gas-fired power plant near Fox Creek, Alberta, to build a “vertically integrated” BTC mining operation. “We are really excited about planting roots in Alberta, our first site in Canada. This acquisition is the culmination of extensive collaboration with multiple government agencies and … Read more
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Acting Chair Caroline Pham said Tuesday the regulatory agency has reorganized its enforcement division to “refocus” on fraud and “stop regulation by enforcement.” Under former Chairman Rostin Behnam, the CFTC’s Division of Enforcement had a variety of task forces, including one focused on insider trading, another focused on cybersecurity … Read more