Cointelegraph.com
Source:
https://cointelegraph.com
Found 10245 news
-
Cointelegraph.com - 19:47 Jan 25, 2026
Major changes to the Bitcoin protocol should be well-thought-out and rare, Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor previously said. The biggest threat to the Bitcoin network is “ambitious opportunists” who want to push through protocol changes, according to Michael Saylor, the co-founder of Bitcoin (BTC) treasury company Strategy. Saylor’s comments sparked a debate online. Bitcoin maximalist Justin Bechler said the comments were directed toward software developers pushing for non-monetary use cases on Bitcoin, such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and onchain images in blocks. “The greatest risk to Bitcoin is quantum,” investor Fred Krueger said, while others like Mert Mumtaz, the CEO of remote procedure call (RPC) node provider Helius, disagreed with Saylor. Mumtaz said: Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 18:38 Jan 25, 2026
Bitcoin began losing gains as US futures prepared to open as markets geared up to deal with a host of potential downside volatility catalysts. Bitcoin (BTC) saw multiday lows into Sunday’s weekly close as bulls faced a week of macro uncertainty. Key points: Bitcoin heads lower as market nerves about upcoming macroeconomic volatility catalysts boil over. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 16:42 Jan 25, 2026
The Tallinn protocol upgrade marks Tezos' 20th major update since launching in 2018, and was implemented without a network fork. Tezos, a layer-1 proof-of-stake blockchain network, implemented its latest protocol upgrade, Tallinn, on Saturday, which reduced block times on the base layer to 6 seconds. The latest upgrade is the 20th update to the protocol, which reduces block times, slashes storage costs and reduces latency, resulting in faster network finality times, according to an announcement from Tezos. Tallinn also allows all network validators, known as “bakers”, to attest to every single block, rather than a subset of validators attesting to blocks, which is how validators verified blocks in previous versions of the protocol, Spokespeople for Tezos explained: Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 12:33 Jan 25, 2026
The fourth-quarter crypto pullback hit ARK ETFs, with Coinbase emerging as the biggest drag on performance. Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest has increased its exposure to crypto-linked equities, adding shares of Coinbase, Circle and Bullish as prices slid across the sector. According to ARK’s daily trade disclosures for Friday, the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) purchased 38,854 shares of Coinbase Global Inc., while the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) added another 3,325 shares, acquiring a total of $9.4 million worth of the exchange shares. Coinbase shares closed down 2.77% on the day at $216.95. ARK added a combined 129,446 shares of Circle Internet Group across ARKK and ARKF, a position worth roughly $9.2 million. The firm also added 88,533 shares of Bullish across the same ETFs, investing about $3.2 million. Circle shares were little changed on the day, slipping 0.03% while Bullish shares declined 2% during the session, closing at $35.75. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 09:34 Jan 25, 2026
AFP Protección says access to the Bitcoin-linked fund will be limited to qualified investors and will not alter the core allocation of Colombian pension savings. Colombia’s second-largest private pension and severance fund manager, AFP Protección, is preparing to launch an investment fund with exposure to Bitcoin. Juan David Correa, president of Protección SA, confirmed the initiative during an interview with local outlet Valora Analitik. According to Correa, access to the product will be limited and granted only through a personalized advisory process designed to assess each investor’s risk profile. Only clients who meet specific criteria will be able to allocate a portion of their portfolios to Bitcoin (BTC). “The most important element is diversification,” Correa noted, adding that “those who can participate will find a space for a percentage of their portfolio, if they so wish, to be exposed to this type of asset.” Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 07:09 Jan 25, 2026
The Gemini-owned NFT platform will close on Feb. 23, 2026, entering withdrawal-only mode as another major casualty of the sector’s prolonged downturn. Nifty Gateway, one of the earliest and most recognizable NFT marketplaces, is set to shut down operations next month, marking another high-profile exit amid the sector’s prolonged downturn. “Today, we are announcing that the Nifty Gateway platform will be closing on February 23, 2026,” the Gemini-owned platform wrote in a Saturday post on X, adding that it has already entered withdrawal-only mode, giving users roughly one month to move any remaining NFTs or funds off the site. A shutdown notice is now displayed on Nifty Gateway’s homepage, and users can withdraw assets either through a linked Gemini Exchange account or directly to their bank via Stripe. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 05:13 Jan 25, 2026
The spike in Polymarket odds comes just days after United States President Donald Trump said “we’re probably going to end up in another Democrat shutdown.” Polymarket betters are pricing in a 77% chance that the US government will shut down again before the end of January, marking a 67% increase over the past 24 hours. It comes as the CLARITY Act, a significant crypto bill aimed at providing more clarity around regulations, is still making its way through Congress, with previous delays largely blamed on the record 43-day US government shutdown in October and November. Political commentator Collin Rugg highlighted the surging Polymarket odds in an X post on Saturday, noting that it came shortly after US Senator Chuck Schumer announced that Senate Democrats would not “provide the votes to proceed” to the appropriations bill if funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is included. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 01:28 Jan 25, 2026
The extended outflow streak comes as a widely used crypto sentiment indicator has stayed within the “Extreme Fear” range since Wednesday. US-based spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have extended their outflow streak to five days as crypto market sentiment continues to wane. Spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs posted $103.5 million in net outflows on Friday, continuing an outflow streak that began the previous Friday. Over the five days, including the four-day trading week in the US shortened by Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, total outflows reached approximately $1.72 billion, according to Farside data. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 22:04 Jan 24, 2026
Crypto sales are taxable under current United States policy, but lawmakers have proposed tax exemptions for small transactions. The biggest obstacle to Bitcoin (BTC) being used as a payment method is tax policy, not scaling technology that reduces settlement times and transaction costs, according to Pierre Rochard, a board member for Bitcoin treasury company Strive. “Here’s a metaphor: the best athlete can win against the worst athlete 100% of the time, if the best athlete plays. It drops to 0% if he doesn’t play and lets the weak athlete win,” Rochard said about BTC’s current lack of use as a method of payment. In December 2025, the Bitcoin Policy Institute, a non-profit policy advocacy organization, sounded the alarm on the lack of a de minimis tax exemption for small Bitcoin transactions. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 20:24 Jan 24, 2026
The Nietzschean Penguin (PENGUIN) memecoin had a market capitalization of about $387,000 before the US White House published its post. The Nietzschean Penguin (PENGUIN) token, a memecoin launched on the Solana layer-1 blockchain network, surged by about 564% following a social media post from the United States White House. On Friday, the White House published a social media post on X of US President Donald Trump and a penguin holding hands and walking through the snow, which went viral. PENGUIN traded at a market capitalization of about $387,000 before the post and recorded $244 million in trading volume in the 24 hours after the post, according to SolanaFloor. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 18:00 Jan 24, 2026
The Bitcoin proposal caps arbitrary data in an attempt to combat spam from non-monetary transactions on the Bitcoin network. The number of Bitcoin (BTC) nodes signaling support for Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 (BIP-110), a temporary soft fork limiting the amount of data included in each transaction at the consensus level, rose to 2.38%. 583 out of 24,481 nodes are running BIP-110, and the primary node software implementation for running the soft fork proposal is Bitcoin Knots, according to The Bitcoin Portal. BIP-110 limits the size of transaction outputs to 34 bytes and caps the OP_RETURN data limit to 83 bytes. The temporary soft fork will be deployed for 1 year, with possible extension or alteration after the 1-year term, according to the proposal’s GitHub page. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 12:30 Jan 24, 2026
Some European policymakers have floated the idea of selling off US debt as a way of combating US belligerence, but it may be much more difficult in practice. The United States’ geopolitical brinkmanship over Greenland has thrown its economic ties to the EU into sharp relief. European powers are considering what instruments it has to combat US belligerence, including the “nuclear option” of offloading US debt. The tone has shifted after a supposed “framework of a deal” at Davos, and US ambitions to take over Greenland have cooled, for now. But EU heads of state are still preparing possible responses to further escalation. One option was cutting off access to US markets through the so-called “trade bazooka.” If triggered, it would cut off US companies from the EU market, costing them billions. Another option is offloading the trillions of dollars in US assets held in Europe. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 12:20 Jan 24, 2026
Proposed restrictions under the US CLARITY Act could drive demand for offshore and synthetic dollar products as investors seek yield outside regulated markets, experts warn. The proposed restrictions on stablecoin yields under the US CLARITY Act risk driving capital out of regulated markets and into offshore, opaque financial structures. Colin Butler, head of markets at Mega Matrix, said banning compliant stablecoins from offering yield would not protect the US financial system, but instead sideline regulated institutions while accelerating capital migration beyond US oversight. “There’s always going to be demand for yield,” Butler told Cointelegraph, adding that if compliant stablecoins can’t offer it, capital will simply move “offshore or into synthetic structures that sit outside the regulatory perimeter.” Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 09:49 Jan 24, 2026
Investors and crypto users warn the proposed unrealized gains tax could drive an exodus of capital and talent. The Netherlands plans to tax unrealized capital gains on a range of investments, including stocks, bonds and cryptocurrencies, sparking warnings of capital flight. A majority of lawmakers in the Dutch parliament appear ready to back changes to the country’s Box 3 asset tax regime, which would require investors to pay annual tax on both realized and unrealized gains, even if assets have not been sold, NL Times reported on Tuesday. The plan follows court rulings that struck down the existing system for relying on assumed, rather than actual, returns. The Tweede Kamer (House of Representatives) debated the proposal again this week, with more than 130 questions put to caretaker State Secretary for Taxation Eugène Heijnen. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 07:46 Jan 24, 2026
Ethereum developers to launch biweekly sessions on quantum-resistant transactions as Foundation commits $2 million in new funding to harden core cryptography. The Ethereum Foundation has made post-quantum security a central focus of the network’s long-term roadmap, announcing the formation of a dedicated Post Quantum (PQ) team. The new team will be led by Thomas Coratger, a cryptographic engineer at the Ethereum Foundation, with support from Emile, a cryptographer closely associated with leanVM, according to crypto researcher Justin Drake. “After years of quiet R&D, EF management has officially declared PQ security a top strategic priority,” Drake said in a Saturday post on X. “It's now 2026, timelines are accelerating. Time to go full PQ.” Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 04:09 Jan 24, 2026
A full sale at current prices would imply about a $76 million loss on GameStop’s Bitcoin bet, having purchased its 4,710 Bitcoin at an average purchasing price of $107,900. GameStop has transferred its entire Bitcoin holdings to Coinbase’s institutional trading platform, sparking speculation that the video game retailer may be reconsidering its Bitcoin treasury strategy. “GameStop throws in the towel?” blockchain intelligence platform CryptoQuant asked in a post to X on Friday after noticing that GameStop moved its entire 4,710 Bitcoin (BTC) stash worth more than $422 million to Coinbase Prime. CryptoQuant said the transfer was “likely to sell” the holdings, noting that a sale with Bitcoin at $90,800 would mean GameStop realizing around $76 million in losses from its Bitcoin bet. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 02:21 Jan 24, 2026
The amendments marked the latest Democratic Party-driven push to prevent US officials from profiting off of crypto interests. US Democratic Senators working on crypto market structure legislation filed several amendments on Friday, including measures to address conflicts of interest with US officials profiting from the crypto industry. The ethics-focused amendments were filed ahead of the Senate Agriculture Committee’s markup for the crypto market structure legislation this Tuesday, which seeks to give greater clarity on federal rules for digital assets, define agency oversight, and bring regulatory certainty to investors and market participants. One of the most notable amendments was Senator Michael Bennet’s purported inclusion of the Digital Asset Ethics Act into the crypto market structure legislation to prevent US officials from profiting from the crypto industry. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 00:20 Jan 24, 2026
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said no political or personal financial ties will impact the procedural review of World Liberty Financial’s bank charter application. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has knocked back US Senator Elizabeth Warren’s bid to pause the review of World Liberty Financial’s application for a national trust bank charter, a move she sought until US President Donald Trump divests his stake in the crypto platform. The OCC’s Jonathan Gould confirmed on Friday that WLF’s application will be evaluated under existing regulatory standards while emphasizing that no political or personal financial ties will impact the procedural review of the bank charter. “The OCC intends to act consistent with this duty rather than your demand,” he said in response to Warren’s Jan. 14 letter. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 22:43 Jan 23, 2026
The SEC was satisfied with Gemini’s agreement to contribute $40 million toward the full recovery of Gemini Earn investors’ assets lost as a result of the Genesis bankruptcy. The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s civil lawsuit against Gemini Trust Company and Genesis Global Capital in the Earn-related unregistered securities case has been dismissed with prejudice. Court filings show the parties submitted a joint stipulation to dismiss the action on Friday in the US District Court in the Southern District of New York, effectively ending the SEC’s claim over Gemini’s crypto lending program with Genesis. A federal judge still needs to sign off on the joint stipulation to dismiss. The dismissal comes about nine months after the SEC paused the civil action in April 2024 when then-acting chairman Mark Uyeda was leading the agency. The SEC was content with the dismissal based on a 100% in-kind return of Gemini Earn investors’ crypto assets through the Genesis bankruptcy case in mid-2024 and Gemini agreeing to c... -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:32 Jan 23, 2026
Speaking from Davos on Thursday, co-founder and CEO Ronghui Gu said a CertiK public listing would represent a significant advancement for companies involved in Web3. Blockchain security company CertiK is keeping the door open to a future initial public offering, according to co-founder and CEO Ronghui Gu. Speaking in an interview with Acumen Media on Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gu said CertiK’s valuation stands at about $2 billion and that pursuing a public listing would be a natural step for the company. However, the CEO said the company would need “investment, lots of strategic partnerships” to achieve this goal. “We still do not have a very concrete IPO plan, but this is definitely the goal we are pursuing,” said Gu, adding that CertiK going public would represent a significant step for Web3 infrastructure companies: Read more
10245 items