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RedStone co-founder Marcin Kaźmierczak says banks are splitting RWA infrastructure between private networks like Canton and public chains such as Ethereum. Institutional adoption of real-world assets (RWAs) is splitting between public and permissioned networks, exposing a divide between the liquidity advantages of blockchains like Ethereum and the privacy demands driving systems such as Canton Network. The divergence is becoming more pronounced as tokenized assets gain traction among major asset managers. Marcin Kaźmierczak, co-founder of blockchain oracle provider RedStone, said product development is likely to occur on public blockchains, while permissioned systems are better suited for institutional processes that require confidentiality. Read more
The purchase brings Strategy’s total Bitcoin reserves to nearly 739,000 BTC despite the asset trading below the company’s average acquisition price. Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest public holder of Bitcoin, added another large tranche of BTC to its holdings last week, pushing total reserves above 738,000 BTC. Saylor’s Strategy acquired 17,994 Bitcoin (BTC) for $1.28 billion last week, according to a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Monday. The purchase marks the largest BTC acquisition made by Strategy since January, when it acquired 22,305 BTC for $2.13 billion at an average price of $95,284 per BTC. Read more
Stablecoin banking startup Kast secured fresh funding as it looks to expand payment infrastructure across North America, Latin America and the Middle East. Stablecoin payments company Kast has raised $80 million in a funding round that values the company at $600 million, according to a Bloomberg report on Monday citing people familiar with the matter. The round was co-led by QED investors and Left Lane Capital, and Kast expects an annual revenue run rate of around $100 million in 2025, according to Bloomberg. The company reportedly plans to use the funding to expand across North America, Latin America and the Middle East, while also adding staff, securing licenses and developing new products. Read more
Nigel Farage has acquired a 6.31% stake in the London-listed Bitcoin treasury company Stack BTC amid broader scrutiny over crypto donations in UK politics. Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage has invested 215,000 pounds (around $286,000) in Stack BTC, a London-listed Bitcoin treasury company chaired by former UK Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, as the Reform UK leader deepens his ties to the crypto sector. The investment gives Farage a 6.31% stake in the company through his media vehicle Thorn In The Side, according to a Monday release. Stack said it raised $346,000 by issuing 5.2 million new shares at $0.065 each in a strategic funding round that included Farage and Blockchain.com. The company said Blockchain.com also entered a partnership to help deliver institutional-grade services for Stack’s planned Bitcoin (BTC) treasury. Read more
It’s estimated that roughly 1,800 crypto companies operate in the United Arab Emirates, employing more than 8,600 people in various roles. Crypto exchange Bybit has reaffirmed its commitment to the Middle East amid escalating global conflict, announcing the appointment of a new country manager to increase its presence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Tensions in the Middle East escalated last month after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran. In response, Iran retaliated against several neighboring countries, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where Bybit maintains a major regional presence. Helen Liu, co-CEO of Bybit, said the company has no plans to scale back its Middle East operations in light of the conflict. Read more
Nasdaq and Kraken will enable tokenized equities to move between regulated and onchain markets while preserving issuer rights and regulatory compliance. Nasdaq, the world’s second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization, is expanding its push into tokenized equities through a partnership with crypto exchange Kraken and its infrastructure affiliate Backed. The exchange said Monday it plans to support equity tokenization in a way that preserves issuer control, as it looks to connect traditional market infrastructure with blockchain-based networks. Nasdaq has partnered with Payward, Kraken’s parent company, and its subsidiary Backed, the issuer behind xStocks, to develop an equities transformation gateway. Read more
Bitcoin held strong above $67,000 amid oil surge to $119 per barrel on Middle East conflict and inflation fears, with analysts seeing signs of a potential BTC price reversal. Bitcoin (BTC) traded above $67,000 on Monday after posting its first bullish weekly close in seven weeks. Meanwhile, oil prices surged as the Middle East conflict prompted fears of a major supply shortage. Key takeaways: Bitcoin holds firm above $67,000 as oil prices surge to the highest level since 2022. Read more
Coinbase launched regulated crypto and equity index futures for Advanced users in 26 European countries as ESMA sharpens scrutiny of perpetual-style products. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has launched new futures offerings in Europe, expanding its push to give users access to both crypto and traditional market exposure through regulated products. Coinbase said Monday the contracts are being rolled out to Coinbase Advanced users in 26 European countries, including Germany, France and the Netherlands, through its Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, or MiFID, entity. The new lineup includes crypto futures tied to assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL), along with an equity-index product called the Mag7 + Crypto Equity Index Futures. Coinbase said that contract combines exposure to the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks of Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta and Tesla, with crypto-linked equities and BlackRock iShares exchange-traded funds tied to BTC and Ether (ETH). Read more
Bitcoin ETPs turned green year-to-date with $521 million inflows last week, as total crypto assets rebounded despite geopolitical tensions linked to Iran. Crypto investment products held firm last week, clocking decent inflows despite ongoing market turmoil caused by fears of an energy crisis fueled by the US-Israel war with Iran. Crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) recorded $619 million in inflows last week, led by $521 million into Bitcoin (BTC) investment products, CoinShares reported Monday. The gains followed the previous week’s $1 billion in inflows, marking two consecutive weeks of gains after a major sell-off that saw roughly $4 billion in outflows in a five-week streak. Read more
Bitcoin faced two death crosses and the total failure of the $74,000 BTC price breakout headed into the second week of March as the US and Israel-Iran war raged on. Bitcoin (BTC) starts the second week of March on the edge, with markets focused on the Middle East. Bitcoin erased its latest breakout attempt and closed the weekly candle below key resistance. Oil volatility and associated inflation pressures are the week’s main focus for traders. Read more
Bitcoin rebounded from around $65,725 to nearly $68,000 as oil pulled back from its 25% Sunday spike above $117 and market jitters eased. Oil prices pulled back sharply early Monday after reports that Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers planned an emergency call to discuss a coordinated release of strategic crude reserves, giving markets a possible policy response to the war-driven supply shock. The Financial Times reported that G7 finance ministers planned an emergency call to discuss a possible coordinated release of 300 million to 400 million barrels from strategic oil reserves to calm markets after the war-driven spike in crude prices. The G7 countries consist of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, with the European Union as a non-enumerated member. On Hyperliquid, crude oil futures rose nearly 25% to as high as about $117 overnight before falling by around 14.5% to roughly $100 after the G7 reports emerged. The reversal suggested traders were quickly reprici...
Researchers found that some workers using AI in their roles reported a “mental hangover” with a “fog” that caused difficulty focusing. Excessive use and oversight of artificial intelligence tools in the workplace may cause “AI brain fry,” according to researchers from Boston Consulting Group and the University of California. Workers who are using AI tools report that the technology is “intensifying rather than simplifying work,” researchers wrote in the Harvard Business Review on Friday. A study of nearly 1,500 full-time US workers found 14% said they had experienced “mental fatigue that results from excessive use of, interaction with, and/or oversight of AI tools beyond one’s cognitive capacity,” or what the researchers called “AI brain fry.” Read more
Bitcoin’s price has now fallen over four consecutive days to $66,272 after initially climbing on the US-Israel strikes on Iran. Bitcoin fell nearly 2% in just 15 minutes on Sunday while oil prices rose almost 20% as the escalating Middle East conflict prompted fears of a major supply shortage in the global energy market. Data from decentralized derivatives platform Hyperliquid shows oil prices rose from $95 to $113.7 per barrel shortly after US futures markets opened, as Iraq warned that roughly 3 million barrels per day of production could be disrupted due to Iranian threats against tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. It’s the highest price oil has reached since April 2022, a few weeks after Russia commenced its invasion of Ukraine, TradingView data shows. Read more
Strategy's Bitcoin treasury is valued at over $48.4 billion at the time of this writing, but with a net asset value of less than 1, it's trading at a discount. Michael Saylor, the co-founder of Bitcoin (BTC) treasury company Strategy, indicated on Sunday that the firm is buying more BTC, as the price hovers near the $66,000 level. “The Second Century Begins,” Saylor said on X, as he shared the Strategy BTC accumulation chart that has become synonymous with impending BTC purchases. Strategy’s most recent BTC purchase occurred during the last week of February, when the company bought 3,015 BTC for more than $204 million, bringing its total holdings to 720,737 BTC, valued at about $48.1 billion using market prices at the time of publication. Read more
The Pix payment system is credited with driving crypto adoption in Argentina, according to a report from the Lemon crypto application. Banco Central do Brasil said on Friday that it expanded its Pix digital payments system to allow Brazilians living in Argentina to access the service to pay for goods, services and send payments in both countries. The central bank’s instant payments platform is accepted by major crypto platforms and service providers operating in Brazil for fiat onramping, including the Lemon crypto application, Binance Pay, Crypto.Com, the Mercado Bitcoin exchange and the Kraken crypto exchange. Argentina ranks as the number one country for crypto adoption per capita in LATAM, while Brazil ranks as number one in terms of total crypto value received, according to Lemon’s State of the Crypto Industry in Latin America 2025 report. Read more
"Sinners" star Jordan's odds of winning the Best Actor honors at next week's Academy Awards were only 10% on March 1, hours before he won SAG's top male actor award. Actor Michael B. Jordan overtook Timothée Chalamet on prediction market platform Polymarket as most likely to win “Best Actor” at the 2026 Oscars awards show, with his odds rising by over 4x since March 1. Last week, the “Sinners” star won the best actor award at the Actor Awards, formerly known as the Screen Actors Guild Awards, or SAG. A week out from the Academy Awards, Polymarket traders place Jordan’s odds of winning the award at about 47%, while Chalamet is a close second at 45%, Leonardo DiCaprio is at 5%, Wagner Moura has 4% odds and Ethan Hawke has only 1% odds. Chalamet was in the lead until Saturday. Jordan was nominated for an Oscar for his role as twin brothers Smoke and Stack Moore in the 2025 vampire horror film “Sinners.” Chalamet was nominated for his role in “Marty Supreme,” a fictional drama film about a table tennis player. Re...
Bitcoin price weakness brought back the risk of cementing its 200-week exponential moving average trend line as new resistance. Bitcoin (BTC) threatened to cement new resistance into Sunday’s weekly close as traders focused on oil and gold. Key points: Bitcoin risks reinforcing its 200-week exponential moving average as new resistance this week. Read more
Researchers say the experimental AI agent ROME attempted unauthorized cryptocurrency mining during training after diverting GPU resources and opening an SSH tunnel. A research team behind an autonomous AI agent said that the model unexpectedly attempted to use computing resources for crypto mining during training. In a recent technical report, researchers said ROME, an experimental autonomous AI system designed to complete tasks through interaction with tools, software environments and terminal commands, went rogue and attempted crypto mining on its own. According to the report, the unusual behavior surfaced during reinforcement learning runs, when the team noticed security alerts triggered by outbound traffic from training servers. Firewall logs flagged activity resembling crypto mining operations and attempts to access internal network resources. Read more
US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their second consecutive week of net inflows, ending a five-month outflow streak. US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded their second consecutive week of net inflows, marking the first back-to-back weekly gains in five months. Spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs attracted roughly $568.45 million in net inflows this week, according to data from SoSoValue. The products also posted positive flows of about $787.31 million the previous week, showing renewed investor appetite after several weeks of sustained outflows. Before the recent turnaround, US spot Bitcoin ETFs endured a prolonged period of investor withdrawals, recording roughly $3.8 billion in cumulative outflows over a five-week streak. The biggest weekly withdrawal during the streak occurred in the week ending Jan. 30, when spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded about $1.49 billion in net outflows. Read more10222 items