The Arbitrum Security Council moved quickly this week to contain the fallout from the KelpDAO exploit, touting the emergency “freeze” of more than 30,000 ETH tied to the attacker as a victory for user protection. But under the language of containment, the intervention reopened one of crypto’s oldest and most uncomfortable debates: what decentralization actually […]
XRP briefly rose on Wednesday, but that trend did not hold as bitcoin fell on profit-taking after hitting nearly $80,000 on Thursday morning in Asia. Sellers entered near-resistance and pushed prices lower, suggesting the market still lacks the conviction to break out, especially as broader crypto sees profit-taking led by Bitcoin. News context • GraniteShares
Ripple-Linked Token Slips Amid Bitcoin Profit-taking, ETF Lag Read More »
Cryptocurrency exchanges are increasingly offering bank-like services, such as loans and yield products, but without the protection that traditional financial institutions offer, according to a report released Thursday by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). “What looks like a high-yield savings product is actually an unsecured loan to a lightly regulated shadow bank,” said the
Until last Friday, April 17, stablecoin lending to Aave, widely considered the gold standard of DeFi, yielded 2.32% APY. The Federal Reserve’s overnight rate was 3.64%. Taken at face value, the market valued an unregulated open source smart contract as having a lower credit risk than the U.S. Treasury. In 48 hours, it’s over. The
The market revalued DeFi in just 48 hours Read More »
Persistent security vulnerabilities and stagnant total value locked (TVL) are weighing on the institutional appeal of decentralized finance (DeFi), according to Wall Street investment bank JPMorgan (JPM). TVL refers to the total value of crypto assets deposited in DeFi protocols and is commonly used as an indicator of the size, usage, and overall health of
Tether, the crypto company best known for issuing the world’s largest stablecoin, said on Thursday it had frozen $344 million worth of USDT tokens on two wallets on the Tron blockchain after receiving requests from US authorities. The freeze was carried out after authorities flagged the addresses for suspected links to illicit activity, the company
Tether freezes $344 million in USDT on Tron linked to illicit activity Read More »
In today’s newsletter, First Digital’s Vincent Chok unveils the rise of “agent finance,” in which AI agents go beyond advice to execute financial transactions, making crypto the essential financial backend of this machine-driven economy. Next, in “Ask an Expert,” we asked three leading AI systems – Grok, Gemini and Claude – two questions about AI
what advisors need to know Read More »
Recent advances in quantum computing have reignited a long-standing concern about bitcoin. BTC$77,596.36. According to Bitcoin analyst James Check, a sufficiently powerful and cryptographically relevant quantum computer could, in theory, break Bitcoin’s elliptic curve signatures, exposing coins with visible public keys, especially early Satoshi-era wallets. Quantum doomsayers warn that this would trigger an influx of
Why the quantum threat of Bitcoin is manageable and non-existential Read More »
CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of the leaders and laggards of the CoinDesk 20 Index. The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 2117.36, down 1.9% (-40.48) since 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday. All 20 assets are trading lower. Leaders: XLM (-0.6%) and CRO (-0.9%). Lagging behind: UNI (-3.9%) and ETH
Uniswap (UNI) falls 3.9%, leading index down Read More »
Just like Bitcoin BTC$77,694.33 seemed to have built momentum for a breakout above $80,000, macroeconomic uncertainty re-emerged as a headwind. The most notable development came from the Pentagon, which told U.S. lawmakers in a classified briefing that mine clearance in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil bottleneck, could take at least six months, and
BTC price bullish momentum collides with Pentagon-backed inflation warning Read More »
