Elastos, a project looking to turn Bitcoin into a more fruitful base for decentralized finance (DeFi), has raised $20 million towards that goal. Elastos, a decentralized infrastructure provider, aims to scale its Bitcoin DeFi protocol BeL2 as a utility layer for the world’s original blockchain. The firm has raised $20 million from private investment company … Read more
Apollo, an investment firm with over $730 billion in assets under management, is offering investors a new tokenized private credit fund with the help of security token specialist Securitize. Accessed via the Apollo Diversified Credit Securitize Fund (ACRED) feeder fund, the token is the first public on-chain offering for accredited investors of Apollo and also … Read more
Staunch crypto skeptic and disgraced former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Wednesday on charges of bribery and acting as an agent for Egypt, the Associated Press reported. Menendez was a Democrat from New Jersey and famous for taking shots at crypto. He once called bitcoin (BTC) an “ideal … Read more
The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, Norway’s Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), has amassed $356.7 million in indirect bitcoin (BTC) exposure, according to K33 Research. At the end of 2024, the fund indirectly held 3,821 BTC, reflecting a 153% year-over-year increase from 1,507 BTC, according to K33. The data highlight the fund’s evolving indirect bitcoin … Read more
By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) The crypto market is trading positively with the Fed risk event out of the way, focusing on positives such as the crypto-friendly president in the White House, the renewed upswing in Tether’s market, and the bullish Chinese New Year effect. Among cryptocurrencies with $5 billion-plus market … Read more
Institution-focused digital asset technology and trading firm BlockFills is collaborating with CoinDesk Indices to launch options tied to the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20). The CoinDesk 20 Index, which debuted a year ago, measures the performance of leading digital assets, catering to institutional demand for diverse tradable products beyond bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH). The availability … Read more
Bitcoin traded around the $105,000 level in European morning hours Thursday as the year’s first U.S. FOMC meeting concluded with keeping rates steady, bumping sentiment across stock equities and crypto markets. Jerome Powell-led FOMC maintained the policy rate steady at 4.25-4.50 per cent in the first decision of Trump’s presidency after reducing the rates for … Read more
Bernstein remains bullish on Core Scientific (CORZ) even after the shares tumbled 30% earlier this week as Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek challenged the idea that bitcoin (BTC) miners had value as data center plays. The slide means the stock is now available at a deep discount, the broker said in a research report … Read more
Swap volumes on XRP Ledger’s decentralized exchange (DEX) crossed the $400 million mark in January as the network gains traction among larger players, Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in a community call on Wednesday, Volumes average over $17 million daily this month, with over $1 billion since its 2024 launch. The rapid expansion of … Read more
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group announced it will introduce options on Bitcoin Friday Futures (BFF) starting on Feb. 24, pending regulatory approval. According to the press release, BFF was CME Group’s most successful cryptocurrency launch. More than 775,000 contracts traded since launch on Sept. 29. The average daily volume was 9,700 contracts and 44% of contracts … Read more
The cost of using Avalanche, a DeFi-focused smart-contract blockchain, has slumped since the implementation of the Avalanche9000 upgrade on Dec. 16, sending the number of transactions up by more than a third. Since the upgrade, the proof-of-stake blockchain’s usage fees known as gas have averaged roughly 75% less than in the months beforehand, data from … Read more
Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency, has fallen out of investor relative to bitcoin (BTC), returning the worst bull-cycle performance against its larger rival since the Ethereum blockchain’s inception in 2015. A comparison of the ether to bitcoin ratio across past cycles from the tokens’ respective lows shows consistent underperformance. The black line in the chart … Read more
Dutch bank ABN AMRO has conducted an onchain trade of tokenized assets against stablecoins alongside Germany-regulated 21X. The two firms completed a joint proof of concept (PoC) for the issuing of a token on the Polygon Amoy Testnet, which was listed as a trading pair with an e-money token, according to an emailed announcement on … Read more
Abstract, the layer-2 network rolled out this week by Pudgy Penguins, is off to a muted start despite offering a series of incentives to new users. The network notched 711,000 user transactions on the day of release, but that respectable total has been overshadowed by a lack of inflows. Its total value secured (TVS) was … Read more
Several marketplaces hawking Donald Trump-branded merchandise, including GetTrumpWatches.com, GetTrumpFragrances.com, and GetTrumpSneakers.com, have started accepting the Trump memecoin as a payment method alongside credit cards and bitcoin (BTC). Payments options now include TRUMP and will be processed by Solana Pay, a decentralized payment system that allows users to send money directly to merchants without intermediaries. The … Read more
Polymarket only sees a 16% chance that the Donald Trump will order the creation of a strategic bitcoin (BTC) reserve in the first 100 days of its administration, despite assurances from crypto czar David Sacks that there’s an effort underway to explore the idea. “President Trump has asked us to study that issue, so we … Read more
Spanish authorities are crediting the T3 Financial Crime Unit, a consortium made up of Tron, Tether, and TRM Labs, for helping take down a multinational European financial crime syndicate. According to Spain’s Guardia Civil, the crime syndicate operated across multiple European jurisdictions, providing cash-to-crypto laundering services for criminal enterprises. T3 said it seized $26.4 million, … Read more
If someone told you that stock market investors are offloading their cherished holdings, you will most likely interpret it as a sign of an impending market downturn. The narrative, however, differs in the crypto market, where such selling indicates bullishness, according to analysts observing historical trends in the supply held by long-term investors or wallets … 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: Movement Labs rolls out dev mainnet Cardano hard forks to decentralized governance SSV DAO unveils SSC 2.0 Musk pushes blockchain in government Network News MOVEMENT LABS ROLLS OUT … Read more
Are we witnessing the dawn of PolicyFi? In an earlier article on why memecoins matter, I argued that memecoins are ushering in a new era of civic engagement by forming speculative markets in which citizens are able to trade coins tied to government policies. I suggested that holder distributions and market caps in those markets … Read more
Cardano, the layer-1 blockchain launched in 2017 by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson, activated its highly anticipated “Plomin” upgrade on Wednesday, ushering in the ecosystem’s long-awaited move towards a decentralized governance system. With the Plomin upgrade now live, ADA token holders will be able to shape Cardano’s future, including voting on treasury measures and hard forks. … Read more
Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA) appeared to take advantage of a new accounting rule allowing for holdings of digital assets to be marked-to-market each quarter. The company’s fourth quarter earnings report shows its 9,720 bitcoin valued at $1.076 billion as of the end of 2024. That’s up from what had been $184 million for several quarters … Read more
Regulation by enforcement is beginning to crumble, with a court recently ruling that the SEC’s refusal to issue a crypto rule was unlawful. A new crypto-friendly administration stands ready to create crypto clarity through new appointments at the SEC and the CFTC. New acting CFTC Chair Caroline Pham has proposed an uncommon approach, namely the … Read more
As expected, the U.S. Federal Reserve has kept its benchmark fed funds range rate steady at 4.25%-4.50%, the first pause since the central bank began easing policy last September. The accompanying policy statement noted that the unemployment rate had stabilized at a “low level” and inflation remained “somewhat elevated.” The wording was hawkish as it … Read more
Current U.S. regulations are blocking a major financial shift that could open up private-market investments to everyday investors through tokenization, CEO of digital brokerage Robinhood Vlad Tenev said. In a Wednesday opinion piece for the Washington Post, Tenev said that many high-growth companies like OpenAI, SpaceX and Stripe are increasingly avoiding going public, limiting investment … Read more
Canary Capital didn’t even exist when the spot bitcoin or even the spot ethe rexchange-traded funds launched last year. But the company quickly made a name for itself in the business. Founded only last October, Canary Capital has quickly pushed out several applications for crypto ETFs, including ones for Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), Litecoin (LTC) … Read more
Howard Lutnick, who is President Donald Trump’s nominee to be secretary of Commerce, is drawing scrutiny on his relationship with Tether from Senator Elizabeth Warren — the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee and one of Congress’ most reliable critics of the digital asset sector. As CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, the Wall Street firm … Read more
Price outlook Our analysis for 2025 forecasts bitcoin reaching a target of $150,000 in the first half of the year. However, an initial pullback may occur in Q1 if the newly inaugurated Trump administration fails to introduce the anticipated “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve” at the pace expected by the fast-moving crypto market. Even without a fully … Read more
Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms (RIOT) finds itself a target of a second activist investor, with Reuters reporting investment management giant D.E. Shaw as having taken an unspecified stake. The move by D.E. Shaw, which manages $70 billion in assets, comes just weeks after another activist investor, Starboard Value (roughly $9 billion in AUM), took a … Read more
The year is 2025. It’s more than 16 years since the Bitcoin whitepaper was published and 10 years since the launch of Ethereum, and the programmable smart contract layer that came with it. With billions of dollars invested in the industry, and tens of thousands of developers contributing thousands of applications, primitives, and protocols, surely … Read more