Milei’s LLA made a good showing in the midterm elections, but that doesn’t necessarily spell victory for the crypto industry. The party of Argentine President Javier Milei, La Libertad Avanza (LLA), has won the 2025 midterm elections handily. But the crypto industry doesn’t necessarily have cause for celebration. Milei endeared himself to many in the crypto space with his pro-crypto rhetoric. He has called central banks “a scam” and said that Bitcoin (BTC) was “the natural reaction against the central bank scammers.” The economist-turned-president has publicly stated that cryptocurrencies can address some of Argentina’s economic problems. He said, “There will be free competition of currencies, so if you want to use Bitcoin, there will be no problems.” Read more
As Pi Network prepares to align with ISO 20022 by November 2025, can it truly stand beside the XRP Ledger and the Stellar Network in cross-border finance? ISO 20022 is a global standard that defines how financial institutions exchange information for transactions such as payments, securities and remittances. It replaces older, fragmented messaging systems with a unified, structured format that enables banks, fintech companies and payment networks across the world to communicate in the same digital language. Adopting ISO 20022 enhances cross-border compatibility by enabling secure and efficient sharing of richer, structured transaction data (such as payment purpose and sender and receiver information). This improves transparency, reduces the number of errors and accelerates the processing of international transfers. Read more
Coinbase has completed more than 40 high-profile mergers and acquisitions, investing billions of dollars in promising cryptocurrency startups and unicorns. With an estimated value of $100 billion, it’s hard to believe that a company like Coinbase needs to acquire new businesses to grow. But with $10 billion in cash on hand, the US’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange continues to seek out the next big opportunity in the sector. Coinbase has not been shy about writing checks in 2025. The exchange reportedly paid $2.9 billion in a cash-and-stock acquisition of cryptocurrency options trading platform Deribit in August. Then came its headline-grabbing $375 million acquisition of onchain capital raising platform Echo in October. Crypto Twitter was buzzing over the news, thanks to some genius marketeering involving Echo’s founder and influencer Cobie, who received $25 million from Coinbase as part of the deal to relaunch his long-dormant UpOnly podcast. Read more
As central banks ramp up their gold buying, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink referred to crypto and gold as the “assets of fear.” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said investors are turning to gold and cryptocurrency out of fear that their assets are losing value amid growing concerns over global financial stability. “Owning crypto assets or gold are assets of fear,” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in Saudi Arabia, according to a livestream by DWS News. “You own these assets because you’re frightened of the debasement of your assets,” Fink said, adding that investors are worried about the financial and physical security of their assets. Read more