CoinDesk

On Jan. 2, Muneeb Ali, the co-founder and CEO of leading Bitcoin L2 Stacks, updated his X bio from simply “founder @Stacks” to “war time founder @Stacks.” The change signaled Ali’s recognition that 2025 is a year when Stacks must pivot to a focus on going to market and expanding its user base after 2024’s … Read more

The final quarter of 2024 marked a surge in cryptocurrency mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity, signalling that the post-election sentiment shift could spark even more deals in the new year. M&A has already been on the rise, and the recent acquisition of Bridge by Stripe marked a significant milestone that highlights a trend of the … Read more

As Bitcoin continues to rise and institutional investors pour over $20 billion into crypto ETFs, a fundamental shift is occurring in digital asset markets. The appointment of Paul Atkins as SEC Chair, known for favoring market-driven solutions over heavy-handed enforcement, has fueled optimism that crypto can finally balance innovation with regulation. But the crypto industry … 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 3246.57, down 4.2% (-143.25) since 4 p.m. ET on Friday. One of 20 assets is trading higher. Leaders: XRP (+1.4%) and ADA (-2.6%). Laggards: RENDER (-10.7%) and NEAR (-10.4%). … Read more

Disclaimer: The analyst who wrote this piece owns shares of MicroStrategy and Semler Scientific (MSTR). Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy (MSTR) has increased its bitcoin (BTC) holdings for the tenth consecutive week. In the week ending Jan. 12, MicroStrategy purchased 2,530 BTC for $243 million, bringing its total holdings to 450,000 BTC. The average price of the … Read more

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) Risk assets are trading down as the dollar index and Treasury yields benefit from Friday’s blowout nonfarm payrolls report and the Palisades Fires posing a risk to the insurance sector and some P&C companies. BTC is down 2%, changing hands in the key support zone of … Read more

New records continue to be set in the bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem, which has seen the mining difficulty adjustment rise to a new all-time high of 110.45T (trillion). 110.45 trillion means that the difficulty is approximately 110.45 trillion times harder than it was at the time of Bitcoin’s genesis block. The difficulty adjustment adjusts every 2,016 … Read more

Bitcoin (BTC) started the new week on a negative note as major investment banks reassessed their expectations for Federal Reserve (Fed) rate cuts following Friday’s strong jobs report. The leading cryptocurrency by market value dipped below $93,000 during the European hours, representing a 1.6% drop on the day, according to data source CoinDesk. Prices looked … Read more

2025 could be a big year for cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs), according to Laser Digital, the digital asset subsidiary of financial services giant Nomura. More than twelve crypto ETFs could be launched in the U.S. this year, if approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Laser Digital said in a report last week. Asset … Read more

Another jurisdiction has Polymarket in its crosshairs. Over the weekend, Singapore’s Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA) ordered local internet service providers to block access to the prediction market platform, according to reports from users in the city-state. “You have attempted to access an illegal gambling site hosted by an unlicensed gambling service provider,” the announcement reads, … Read more

The market for alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) may see an extra dose of volatility this week, as the impending token unlock schedule will release billions of dollars worth of supply for several coins, including Ondo Finance’s ONDO token. Data from Tokenomist show the weekly unlocks calendar, that includes names like ONDO, ARB, STRK SEI and others, … Read more

Billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, plans to dispose of several assets, including investment in bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETF), to avoid potential conflicts of interest with his new role, according to a report by The New York Times. On Saturday, Bessent, who once worked for billionaire liberal … Read more

As bitcoin (BTC) wobbles around the $90,000-$95,000 area, down more than 10% from its all-time high touched a bit less than four weeks ago, a contrast is growing between traders — whose technical analysis tools show the top cryptocurrency may be due for another plunge — and long-term investors who believe the bull run is … Read more

Usual Protocol, an up-and-coming decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol that has seen a remarkable rise over the past months, faced community backlash on Friday after a tweak in the protocol’s yield-generating token triggered a sell-off on secondary markets. Amid the turmoil, the protocol’s USD0++ token, which represents a locked-up – or staked – version of its … Read more

Enforcement Director Ian McGinley is leaving the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in a week, ending a relatively short tenure that saw some high-profile crypto cases. He arrived at the agency in February 2023, a month before the CFTC sued Binance and then-CEO Changpeng Zhao for violating U.S. commodities laws. During his tenure, he also oversaw … Read more

As crypto fan Donald Trump prepares to take the reins of the government, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has pitched new regulations that would have a significant impact on stablecoin issuers and wallet providers, though the proposal’s future remains in question. The CFPB took the first procedural step to open a proposal to public … Read more

Recent figures reveal that cybercrime inflicted losses of $298 billion on German companies alone in 2024, with 90% of surveyed businesses expecting damages to rise further. The primary targets? Sensitive data like intellectual property, patents and user credentials. These alarming statistics underscore the urgent need for more secure and scalable data infrastructure to mitigate cyber … Read more

Bhutan, a small country in South Asia, is making big waves in the crypto world. The Kingdom, which populates roughly 770,000 people and lies between India, China and Nepal, just made headlines after one of its cities adopted a crypto reserve strategy. This includes bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), and Binance’s BNB token (BNB). El Salvador … Read more

Kenya’s Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has said the country is preparing legislation to legalize cryptocurrencies, a shift from the government’s previous warnings against the industry. “The emergence and growth of Virtual Assets (VAs) and Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) have given rise to innovations in the local and international financial system with dynamic opportunities … Read more

Three Russian nationals tied to operating sanctioned crypto mixing services Blender.io and Sinbad.io have been charged with money laundering by a federal grand jury in Georgia, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement on Friday. Roman Vitalyevich Ostapenko and Alexander Evgenievich Oleynik had been arrested last month, and they face money laundering charges. … Read more

Babylon Labs, developer of the largest BTC staking protocol, is building a trust-minimized Bitcoin bridge with the Cosmos network to enhance the world’s oldest blockchain’s interoperability. In partnership with Bitcoin developers Fiamma, Babylon is using the BitVM2 computing paradigm, which is designed to allow Ethereum-style smart contracts on Bitcoin, which then paves the way for … Read more

Crypto exchange Bybit said it will temporarily suspend its services for its users in India in response to regulation in the country. The Dubai based company intends to prevent its customers in India from being able to open new trades or access products on the platform from Sunday. “The only exception will be withdrawals,” the … Read more

The U.S. renewable energy industry is in an odd position. Large-scale projects, like SunZia, the southwestern wind turbine project that is expected to provide enough electricity to power three million homes, are funded with relative ease thanks to long-established relationships with financial giants. Meanwhile, small-scale installations such as solar panels on one’s rooftop are becoming … Read more

The employment market in the U.S. picked up steam in December, with job growth topping economist forecasts by a mile and the unemployment rate unexpectedly dipping. The economy added 256,000 jobs last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday, topping forecasts for 160,000 and up from 212,000 in November (revised from an originally … Read more

This week, the crypto market has witnessed a notable positive shift, particularly in prices for major alternative cryptocurrencies XRP, DOGE and XLM. These tokens are once again priced more or less the same on the Nasdaq-listed Coinbase, considered a proxy for the stateside demand, and the offshore giant Binance, TradingView data shows. The recovery from … Read more

The crypto industry’s most notorious rapper, Heather Morgan – more widely known as Razzlekhan – released a new music video as U.S. authorities stand ready to imprison her for criminally laundering portions of the crypto loot her husband was convicted of pilfering from Bitfinex. In the song, ‘Razzlekhan vs. The United States,” Morgan’s outlandish and … Read more

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) The crypto market has regained some stability, with BTC rising back to nearly $95K as order books signaled the presence of bargain hunters. Late Wednesday, prices tested the long-standing support zone of $90K-$93K, which has successfully halted downward movements at least six times since the second … Read more

Many traders were watching the bitcoin (BTC) price action during European hours on Friday, slightly confused and for good reason. If you look at the candlesticks chart for BTCUSD pair on Coinbase, you would see fourteen green hourly candles, which means in the last 14 hours bitcoin scored gains in each hour. The hourly candles … Read more

Weakness in bitcoin (BTC) has deferred to other crypto majors from Solana’s SOL to memecoin dogecoin (DOGE), data suggests current levels could prove ripe for risk-on traders. “Crypto’s top meme coin Dogecoin has been extremely quiet outside of a temporary run-up at the beginning of the year,” analytics firm Santiment wrote in a Thursday report, … Read more

The EU’s MiCA regulations, which came into effect on Dec. 30, will likely boost euro denominated stablecoins, JPMorgan (JPM) said in a research report on Wednesday. “Under MiCA, only compliant stablecoins can be used as trading pairs in regulated markets, prompting EU exchanges to adjust their offerings,” analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote. This has … Read more