Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Ben Schiller, CoinDesk’s Features and Opinion Editor. In this issue: HyperLiquid responds to criticism over decentralization StarkWare launches appchains on Starknet Arbitrum deepens ties to South Korea’s Lotte Group Do Kwon criminal trial set for 2026 Pyth Network … Read more
Solana is ratcheting up testing of Firedancer, the highly anticipated software upgrade that promises to vastly increase the blockchain’s processing speed. By the end of this week, Solana’s core developers want a “super majority” of processing power on the chain’s low-stakes test network to run through Frankendancer, an early version of Firedancer, according to messages … Read more
Already the largest gainer among major cryptos since the U.S. November presidential election, Ripple’s XRP outperformed even more on Wednesday after Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty dined with President-elect Donald Trump. “Great dinner last night … Strong start to 2025,” wrote Garlinghouse on X alongside a picture of him and … Read more
Bitcoin (BTC) erased all its early-2025 rise on Wednesday as macro jitters and the global bond rout accelerated the sell-off in crypto prices. The largest crypto slipped to a session low of $92,600 during U.S. trading hours, shedding nearly 10% in two days from its Monday peak above $102,000. It has recovered some of the … Read more
NEW YORK, NY — Terraform Labs co-founder and former CEO Do Kwon’s criminal fraud trial in the U.S. has been tentatively scheduled for next January, allowing prosecutors and Kwon’s defense attorneys adequate time to review the “massive” six-terabyte trove of data expected to be produced during the discovery process. During an initial hearing in Manhattan … Read more
Though U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission chief Rostin Behnam never managed to make it happen, the derivatives watchdog is likely to one day play a more prominent role in overseeing cryptocurrency trading, something he will “continue to advocate” for after he’s gone. Behnam, who will step down on January 20 to make way for President-elect … Read more
Blockchain oracle firm Pyth Network has partnered with neobank Revolut to port digital banking data into decentralized finance (DeFi). Revolut will provide data for more than 500 markets including foreign exchange, equities and commodities. Revolut also runs a crypto exchange although volume data is not published. The PYTH token spiked momentarily on the news but … Read more
Real world assets (RWAs). This is what the crypto natives and institutions are now calling on-chain representations of ownership in real estate, debt, equity, fund LP units, and other traditional assets. Throughout 2024, RWA tokenization grew in popularity thanks to key catalysts including: BlackRock tokenizing one of its funds and investing in a tokenization company. … Read more
Bitcoin rounded out an exceptionally strong 2024 (up 120% yoy) with a whimper, logging the first overbought “sell” signal on its weekly bar chart since mid-April according to the stochastic oscillator, which is an indicator of trend exhaustion. The signal suggests bitcoin will remain range-bound, at least in the short term (roughly 2-6 weeks), as … Read more
Crypto markets had been on a nice bull run the the final quarter of 2024, but the trend of rising government bond yields across the globe appears to have become to strong to ignore. Considered the benchmark that sets the standard across the world, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield has risen to 4.70% as of … Read more
Aethir’s decentralized Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) network began as a solution for cloud gaming, but co-founder Mark Rydon says the company is now focused on artificial intelligence — an industry where soaring demand for compute power is driving up GPU value and colliding with U.S.-China geopolitics. Aethir, founded in 2022, is one of the most … 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 3430.34, down 1.1% (-39.46) since 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday. Two of 20 assets are trading higher. Leaders: XRP (+2.0%) and XLM (+1.7%). Laggards: APT (-5.1%) and NEAR (-5.1%). … Read more
HyperLiquid, the layer-1 blockchain known for its derivatives exchange, has responded to criticism over an apparent lack of decentralization and issues around validators. The concerns were initially published by Kam Benbrik, an employee at ChorusOne which operates several nodes across different blockchains. Many of the issues stemmed from HyperLiquid using “closed-source code,” which Benbrik claims … Read more
Dogecoin (DOGE) led losses among crypto majors as bitcoin (BTC) slid to nearly $96,000, a dump attributed to fresh economic data that sent U.S. treasury yields soaring. DOGE plunged 10%, with Solana’s SOL, Cardano’s ADA, BNB Chain’s BNB and ether (ETH) down at least 7%. Bitcoin fell 5.5%, while the broad-based CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a … Read more
Autonomous robots may sound like sci-fi concepts that are decades away, but large language models and generative AI now allow machines to plan, learn, and think. More than that – the same software that can win the math olympics and write novels can also control physical robots, allowing one digital persona to operate across the … Read more
Coinbase Inc. has been given an unusual chance to skip ahead in a U.S. federal court dispute with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) when a judge granted the company’s request to chase a narrow appeal of the regulator’s accusations about trading crypto securities. If the U.S. digital assets exchange can get the U.S. Court … Read more
Arbitrum, the largest layer-2 network on top of Ethereum, has awarded its biggest-ever developer grant to Lotte Group, the multibillion-dollar South Korean conglomerate known for its vast portfolio of shopping malls, media companies and entertainment properties. According to Offchain Labs, the developer behind Arbitrum, the grant cements Arbitrum as the main blockchain infrastructure provider for … Read more
Artificial intelligence (AI) crypto tokens are failing to live up to their lofty 2024 goals despite Nvidia’s (NVDA) recent conference sparking bullish sentiment among AI stocks in the traditional markets. Last March, the NEAR token doubled in the lead-up to Nividia’s annual conference, gains that were mirrored across the wider crypto AI market. Fetch.AI (FET), … Read more
After rallying over 50% since early November, bitcoin (BTC), the leading cryptocurrency by market value, looks to be carving out a pattern. If completed, this could see prices revisit the mid-$70Ks. BTC’s price action since late November has evolved into what technical analysts call a “head and shoulders” (H&S) pattern, which foreshadows a bullish-to-bearish trend … Read more
Having travelled extensively through many emerging markets, Nick van Eck, the CEO and co-founder of stablecoin issuer Agora, is keenly aware of the problems that currency debasement and a lack of sound financial systems can create for citizens of these countries. With AUSD, Agora’s flagship stablecoin product, van Eck is focused on solving the unique … Read more
Crypto markets stumbled with bitcoin (BTC) losing the $100,000 level on Tuesday U.S. morning as two stronger-than-expected U.S. economic data prints threw cold water on digital assets’ bright early-year momentum. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ JOLTS job openings for November unexpectedly rose to 8.1 million from 7.8 million the previous month, easily topping analyst estimates … Read more
Since the November 5 election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, bitcoin (BTC) is up around 47%, sharply outperforming the S&P 500’s 4% advance. The incoming president, of course, has made clear his friendliness towards bitcoin and crypto. Also worth consideration is the Republican sweep of the Senate and House of Representatives, where laws … Read more
With a formal departure announcement from U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Rostin Behnam, January 20 is now the official last day of both heads of the U.S. markets regulators. Behnam joins Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler on choosing the very last day of the administration of President Joe Biden as their final … Read more
Ether spent most of 2024 trailing behind its cryptocurrency peers but has now firmly joined the rally sparked by bitcoin’s record-breaking climb, crossing the $4,000 mark in December but well below its all time high of $4,900. In 2024, ether gained around 53% compared to bitcoin’s 113% surge; however, ether’s recent performance shows promise. Since … Read more
Landlocked between six different neighbors in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia has approximately 120 million inhabitants, making it the second most populous nation on the continent, and a GDP of $163 billion, which puts it in the same economic league as Ukraine, Morocco, Slovakia or Kuwait. However, the country has also suffered from a bloody … 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 3701.1, down 1.1% (-39.29) since 4 p.m. ET on Monday. Four of 20 assets are trading higher. Leaders: APT (+4.6%) and ADA (+2.2%). Laggards: POL (-3.1%) and LINK (-3.1%). … Read more
Ripple, an enterprise-focused blockchain service closely related to the XRP Ledger (XRP), said Tuesday that it will use data provider Chainlink’s (LINK) services to better integrate its RLUSD stablecoin with decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. This feature, which went live today on the Ethereum blockchain, allows developers to incorporate RLUSD into DeFi protocols for trading, lending … Read more
By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) It’s still early in 2025, and already we’re seeing a significant divergence between bitcoin and the S&P 500. BTC is looking to secure a foothold above $100,000, and its Deribit-listed options are indicating a bullish bias. The same can’t be said of the S&P 500, which … Read more
Crypto exchange Gemini agreed to pay $5 million to settle a case with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission over allegedly misleading statements it made more than seven years ago about how easily the price of a bitcoin futures contract could be manipulated. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss’ exchange settled without admitting or denying liability, according … Read more
Disclaimer: The analyst who wrote this piece owns shares of MicroStrategy (MSTR) and Semler Scientific (SMLR). As interest in digital assets continues to rise, a new phase of corporate adoption for Bitcoin appears to be taking shape, with publicly listed firms following MicroStrategy’s lead by adding BTC to their balance sheets. It all started with … Read more