Onchain asset manager Maple is taking syrupUSDC to Coinbase’s Base network, adding institutional credit rails while pursuing Aave's Base instance next. Onchain asset manager Maple is extending its yield-bearing US dollar token, syrupUSDC, to Coinbase’s Base network, plugging institutional credit directly into a fast‑growing Ethereum layer-2 ecosystem. According to a Thursday release shared with Cointelegraph, the launch will provide the company with a “direct path” to Coinbase’s broader ecosystem of users and products, while making institutional-grade yield available to a wider base of onchain users, rather than keeping it siloed on the Ethereum mainnet. An Aave governance proposal is also currently live to onboard syrupUSDC as collateral on the Aave V3 Base Instance, if the vote passes. Read more
Bangladesh began official campaigning on Thursday for the hugely anticipated general elections next month, the first since the 2024 uprising ended the autocratic rule of Sheikh Hasina. Tens of thousands of flag-waving supporters of key frontrunner Tarique Rahman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) crowded the streets of the northern city of Sylhet, chanting his name. “We have liberated the country from autocratic rule,” prime ministerial hopeful Rahman, who returned to Bangladesh in December after 17 years in exile, told crowds of BNP loyalists. “Now we must establish the rights of the people.” Rahman vowed to create jobs for “millions of unemployed youth” and support women’s economic independence. “Do we have a leader? Yes, we do,” BNP loyalists shouted, carrying placards of Rahman. Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) supporters gather for a rally ahead of the upcoming national election, in Sylhet on Jan 22, 2026. — AFP Key rival Jamaat-i-Islami began its campaign in the capital Dhaka, after being crush...
Three years ago, the international effort to create a binding treaty to end plastic pollution started with an explosion of hope. Last year it collapsed. This has stalled the birth of an agreement that could begin to rein in production of a fossil-fuel-based material that is harming ecosystems on every part of Earth. The treaty seemed to be the latest victim of a struggling multilateral system. Shifting geopolitics, changing national positions and the global influence of fossil fuels are frustrating the broader work of curbing climate change – humanity’s common interest. I reported on the plastics negotiations over this period, watching as 184 countries seemed increasingly unable to find common ground. With so much at stake, one absence in particular seemed to weaken the process: the ability, when countries could not reach full consensus, to make a decision anyway based on a two-thirds majority vote. Arcane as it sounds, this omission lurked behind some of the most dramatic negotiation scenes, and still haunts...