Giving crypto companies and fintech startups access to accounts at the Federal Reserve is a hedge against debanking by commercial banks. Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, a pro-crypto United States lawmaker, said the recent proposal from Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller to give crypto companies access to “skinny” master accounts would end debanking under Operation Chokepoint 2.0. Waller proposed the idea at the Payments Innovation Conference in October, allowing crypto and fintech startups, including payment-only banks, access to accounts at the Federal Reserve similar to the “master accounts” used by banks, but with restrictions. Lummis said: Operation Chokepoint 2.0 was described as a coordinated effort to deny banking services to crypto companies and their founders. More than 30 tech founders were debanked under the operation, according to venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. Read more
The low levels of internet search volume signal that retail investors are not interested in the crypto market, a stark contrast from January. Worldwide Google search volume for the term “crypto” is hovering above the 1-year low and has reached a 1-year low in the United States as 2025 comes to a close, indicating weak crypto investor sentiment. The Google search volume scale ranges from 0-100, with 100 indicating the highest levels of search volume. Worldwide search volume for “crypto” hit 26 on Monday, just two points above the 1-year low of 24. Worldwide search volume collapsed during the crypto market crash in April, due to US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff policy. US Google search volumes for “crypto” followed the same pattern but fell to a 1-year low of 26 on Monday. Mario Nawfal said: Read more
Developing economies that lack entrenched financial market infrastructure will adopt tokenized real-world assets before developed countries. The tokenized real-world asset (RWA) market will continue to grow in 2026, fueled by adoption in emerging market economies, according to Jesse Knutson, head of operations at crypto exchange Bitfinex. Emerging market economies experience “friction” in capital formation and attracting foreign investment, Knutson told Cointelegraph Tokenizing real-world assets, the process of representing physical or traditional assets on blockchain networks, fixes this by enabling onchain capital formation and bypassing traditional financial intermediaries, he said. Kunston added: Read more