On Monday, the crypto advocacy group sent a response to the SEC, addressing Citadel’s letter in December that argued for stricter oversight over DeFi.

In December, Citadel said that many DeFi protocols meet the definition of an exchange by using non-discretionary methods, such as algorithms, to bring together buyers and sellers.

The firm called for the SEC to take on more of a notice-and-comment rulemaking approach, rather than an exemption, which the regulator is currently considering.

However, the Blockchain Association rejected that position, arguing that DeFi protocol developers are not brokers or dealers and don’t operate an exchange and “cannot be shoehorned into the statutory categories designed for human-operated intermediaries.”

“Blockchain Association respectfully urges the Commission to proceed with the innovation exemption framework that Chairman Atkins has directed staff to develop,” the group said in the letter. “The Commission should grant exemptive relief for tokenized equity trading, precisely as it did for previous financial technology innovations.”

Tokenization push

The letter comes as SEC Chair Paul Atkins has said the agency will soon seek public comment on a range of issues tied to future rulemaking, including a proposed innovation exemption that could function as a regulatory sandbox for onchain assets. Tokenization has gained traction as firms explore moving assets like stocks onto blockchain infrastructure, enabling faster and more efficient trading.

The SEC has greenlit several entities, including Nasdaq, to move forward with tokenized securities, while also asserting that those assets remain securities and must follow securities law.

The Blockchain Association — whose more than 100 members include Coinbase, Circle and Mysten Labs — said securities laws regulate the intermediaries, but not “neutral infrastructure.”

“Validators, autonomous smart contracts, non-custodial software, and other blockchain-based tools do not become regulated middlemen just because they help power upgraded financial rails,” the group said on Monday.

The Blockchain Association also said the SEC has previously relied on exemptions and has the authority to do so.

“The Commission should understand Citadel’s procedural demand for what it is: a strategy of delay,” the group said. “Citadel’s proposal for comprehensive rulemaking would take years. During that time, the benefits of tokenization would remain unavailable to American investors and innovation in the space would relocate to more innovation-friendly jurisdictions offshore.”

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#DeFi #SEC #BlockchainAssociation #Citadel #CryptoRegulation #Tokenization #CryptoNews #Blockchain #Web3 #Finance #DigitalAssets #CryptoPolicy #Innovation #Fintech #WallStreet

HypurrFi alerted users against interacting with its website and lending platform while it investigates a potential domain hijacking.

“Do NOT USE THE HYPURR .FI domain, it is compromised,” HypurrFi founder androolloyd posted to X on Friday.

The team noted there is no current risk to user funds and that its social media channels remain in its control.

“Do not interact with the app until further notice from the team,” HypurrFi said.

HypurrFi is a DeFi lending and borrowing protocol built on HyperEVM, Hyperliquid’s EVM-compatible high-performance blockchain for perps trading.

The platform has about $30 million in total value locked, according to DefiLlama.

Domain hijackings are a relatively common issue in the crypto sector, and particularly pernicious because they can exploit even the most well-audited smart contracts and secure onchain protocols.

Attackers will often take over a project’s frontend website to deploy wallet drainers or inject other malicious code prompts. Last month, for instance, attackers compromised the BONKfun domain.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#HypurrFi #DeFi #CryptoSecurity #DomainHijack #Web3 #CryptoNews #CyberSecurity #Blockchain #DeFiRisk #WalletSafety

The GMCI AI Index recorded a value of 51.26 on Sunday, up 48% since the beginning of February. However, it is worth noting that the index remains 84% below its all-time high from the first quarter of 2024.

The GMAI index comprises nine tokens with extreme top-heaviness, with Bittensor (TAO), Render (RNDR), and Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI) making up over 71% of the index.

Despite being called a crypto AI index, it is more of a measure of the performance of three large-cap AI infrastructure tokens rather than broader AI crypto sentiment. This composition matters for interpreting the March rally, as the price of TAO nearly doubled in March, and combined with its 24.89% weight, contributed the majority of the index’s appreciation.

The rise in the price of TAO is mostly due to the market catching up to a fundamental realization of what the Bittensor network can demonstrably do.

Expand Chart

Bittensor subnet 3’s team announced the Covenant-72B model, a 72-billion-parameter language model trained permissionlessly across more than 70 globally distributed nodes. The model scored 67.1 on MMLU, a popular benchmark for evaluating the capabilities of LLMs, putting it in a competitive range with Meta’s Llama 2 70B.

This showcased the first credible proof that distributed training, which has often been dismissed as too slow and fragmented, can produce models that compete with centralized incumbents. The top subnet token, τemplar (SN3), rallied by over 400% in the last month to a ~$130 million market cap.

This development in the Bittensor ecosystem gained the attention and acknowledgement of notable public figures such as Jensen Huang and Chamath Palihapitiya, which added further narrative fuel to the ecosystem and the TAO token.

The subnet ecosystem beyond Covenant-72B is also maturing, with Targon (SN4), a decentralized GPU compute marketplace operated by Manifold Labs, securing a six-figure deal to power Dippy AI’s backend of 8.6 million users.

At the time of writing, there have been over 10.7 million TAO tokens issued, with over 68% staked. The price of TAO stands at approximately $317, with a market cap of just over $3 billion.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Bittensor #TAO #AITokens #CryptoAI #AI #Blockchain #CryptoNews #DePIN #Web3 #Altcoins

Paradigm is reportedly developing a prediction markets trading terminal, according to anonymous sources in a Fortune report on Wednesday.

Arjun Balaji, a partner at the venture firm, is said to be leading the terminal initiative, Fortune reported.

Moreover, the firm is reportedly considering establishing an internal market-making desk for prediction markets and prediction market indices.

The Block reached out to Paradigm for confirmation.

Paradigm has been a significant backer of Kalshi, the largest U.S. prediction market provider, since at least June, when it led Kalshi’s $185 million Series C round at a $2 billion valuation.

The venture firm also led Kalshi’s massive $1 billion Series E in December 2025 at an $11 billion valuation.

Kalshi is currently valued at approximately $22 billion, following another $1 billion raise disclosed in March.

Paradigm founder Matt Huang has previously said that prediction markets represent a trillion-dollar opportunity. Huang sits on Kalshi’s board of directors.

Trading terminals enable users to access platforms through a custom-built trading interface, potentially aggregating opportunities across competing trading platforms.

While Kalshi and Polymarket continue to dominate the nascent prediction market sector, they are facing increasing competition. Crypto natives like Coinbase, Crypto.com, and Genesis have launched offerings, while established gambling brands like DraftKings are also tapping the field.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Chairman Michael Selig has been vocal that prediction market activity is permitted under the agency’s remit. However, several states have lobbed legal challenges at firms including Kalshi and Crypto.com for allegedly violating local gambling laws.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Paradigm #PredictionMarkets #Kalshi #Polymarket #CryptoNews #Fintech #Trading #MarketMaking #CryptoMarket #Blockchain #Web3 #CryptoTrading #Startup #VentureCapital #DigitalAssets

Ripple Labs and Convera said Tuesday they have partnered to “enhance global payments through stablecoin and blockchain infrastructure.”

Convera, formerly known as Western Union Business Solutions, is a fintech that deals with over 140 currencies in approximately 200 countries and territories. The company was acquired for $910 million in 2021.

“With the growing presence and use of digital currencies such as crypto and stablecoins, Convera has maintained a thoughtful approach by listening to what our customers want while watching this space continue to mature,” Convera CEO Patrick Gauthier said in a statement. “Ripple is a clear leader in the crypto space and a natural fit for Convera.”

Gauthier previously served as head of Amazon Pay. Ripple is the primary advocate for XRP Ledger and issuer of the RLUSD stablecoin.

The two companies said they will utilize a “stablecoin sandwich” model in which payments “begin and end in fiat” but leverage stablecoins in between.

“Enterprises are increasingly looking for faster, more flexible ways to move money globally without taking on the complexity of digital assets directly,” Ripple SVP of Product Aaron Slettehaugh said.

Through acquisitions and partnerships, Ripple has been aggressively expanding its global network as stablecoins and traditional payments merge. Last week, the company joined the Singapore central bank’s BLOOM initiative to pilot programmable cross-border trade settlements using the XRP Ledger and Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Ripple #Convera #Stablecoin #CrossBorder #Payments #Fintech #CryptoNews #Blockchain #DigitalAssets #Web3 #GlobalPayments #XRP #CryptoAdoption #MoneyTransfer #FintechNews

Gnosis co-founder Friederike Ernst and Zisk founder Jordi Baylina on Sunday announced a new “easy” initiative: the Ethereum Economic Zone, or EEZ, at EthCC conference in Cannes. The initiative, which is being co-funded by the Ethereum Foundation, aims to create a framework for rollups that can compose synchronously with Ethereum mainnet and with each other within a single transaction.

The EEZ is designed to let smart contracts on connected rollups call contracts on mainnet or other EEZ rollups with the same guarantees as if they were deployed on Ethereum itself. The framework uses ETH as its default gas token and requires no additional bridging infrastructure.

“Ethereum doesn’t have a scaling problem. It has a fragmentation problem,” Ernst said in a statement. “Every new L2 that launches with its own liquidity pool and its own bridge is another walled garden.”

The project represents the latest and most concrete effort to address Ethereum’s well-documented L2 fragmentation problem. The proliferation of Layer 2 chains has been a persistent concern as the ecosystem scaled blockspace while splintering liquidity and user experience.

The project is launching alongside an informal collective called the EEZ Alliance. Founding members include DeFi lending protocol Aave, block builders Titan and Beaver Build, real-world asset platform Centrifuge, and tokenized equities project xStocks.

As The Block reported in 2024, analysts flagged that a new Ethereum L2 was appearing roughly every 19 days, with each one adding a new silo of fragmented liquidity. The Block’s own 2026 L2 outlook concluded that most new L2 launches became ghost towns shortly after incentive cycles while meaningful activity concentrated around a small set of ecosystems.

The EEZ also enters a crowded field of interoperability efforts. The Ethereum Foundation’s own Account Abstraction team unveiled an “Interop Layer” in November 2025 designed to make the L2 ecosystem feel like a single unified chain. Meanwhile, Optimism’s Superchain and Polygon’s AggLayer have pursued their own cross-chain coordination strategies, and the =nil; Foundation has been developing a zkSharding-based approach to the same underlying problem.

What distinguishes the EEZ, its proponents argue, is real-time ZK proving. Baylina, who created the Circom programming language and co-founded Polygon zkEVM before spinning off the team into independent venture Zisk last June, said his proving stack is the enabling technology. “We spent two years building a ZKVM that can prove Ethereum blocks in real time,” he said. “Synchronous composability between rollups isn’t theoretical anymore.”

The announcement did not arrive out of nowhere. GnosisDAO governance records from February 2026 show the community had already been debating a six-month R&D collaboration with Baylina to explore converting Gnosis Chain into a natively integrated Ethereum L2 with synchronous composability. The EEZ appears to be the product of that exploration.

The Ethereum Foundation’s decision to co-fund the initiative is notable given its recent shift to a leaner spending posture. The Foundation paused its open grants program in mid-2025 as part of an effort to cut its burn rate to roughly 5% per year. Co-executive directors Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz K. Stańczak have said their priorities include scaling Ethereum mainnet and improving L2 interoperability, making the EEZ a natural fit for the Foundation’s narrower focus.

The EEZ will be structured as a Swiss non-profit with all software released as free and open-source, per the release. The project aims for governance minimization and eventual non-upgradability. Technical specifications and performance benchmarks are expected in the coming weeks.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Ethereum #ETH #Gnosis #EEZ #Layer2 #Rollups #ZK #Blockchain #CryptoNews #Web3 #DeFi #CryptoInfrastructure #OnChain #Scaling #Interop

Bitcoin has held up better than gold and silver during the Iran war, with signs of inflows and rising activity, while precious metals have seen sharp outflows and position unwinds, JPMorgan analysts said.

Gold has fallen about 15% month-to-date, as rising interest rates and a stronger U.S. dollar weighed on “previously crowded positions,” JPMorgan analysts led by managing director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said in a Wednesday report. Both gold and silver had rallied to record highs earlier this year — near $5,500 for gold and $120 for silver — leaving them vulnerable to profit-taking and position liquidation once market conditions shifted, the analysts noted.

Gold exchange-traded funds saw nearly $11 billion in outflows over the first three weeks of March, while silver ETF flows have reversed all of the inflows built up since last summer, the analysts said. In contrast, bitcoin (BTC) has seen net inflows over the same period, pointing to relative strength compared with traditional safe-haven assets.

Bitcoin momentum signals recovering

Crypto activity surged in Iran following the outbreak of the war, as citizens moved funds from local exchanges to self-custody wallets and international platforms, the analysts said, citing Chainalysis data. Bitcoin’s borderless nature, ability to be held in self-custody, and 24/7 trading availability made it a preferred vehicle for capital movement during periods of economic instability, currency pressure, and capital controls, the analysts noted.

Institutional positioning also shows a shift. JPMorgan’s proxy for institutional futures positioning — based on changes in CME open interest — showed a build-up in gold and silver positions through late last year and early 2026, followed by a sharp decline since January, indicating profit-taking by institutional investors. Bitcoin futures positioning, by contrast, has remained relatively stable in recent weeks.

Momentum-driven traders appear to have amplified the move. Positioning signals tied to momentum strategies, such as commodity trading advisors, show gold and silver swinging from “overbought levels to below neutral,” suggesting forced liquidations played a role in the recent price declines, according to the analysts. Bitcoin momentum signals, meanwhile, have been recovering from “oversold levels towards neutral,” indicating improving sentiment.

Liquidity conditions have also shifted across assets. Gold has historically shown stronger market liquidity than both silver and bitcoin, as measured by the Hui-Heubel ratio, a metric that tracks market breadth and liquidity, the analysts said. However, that dynamic has recently reversed. Gold’s liquidity conditions have deteriorated, with bitcoin now showing better market breadth, while silver has seen an even sharper decline in liquidity, which may have worsened its price moves, according to the analysts.

“In all, silver ETF flows have unwound all of the previous inflows seen since last summer. The deterioration in liquidity conditions in gold has seen its market breadth decline below that of bitcoin currently,” the analysts concluded. “Crypto activity reportedly surged in Iran, highlighting the important role cryptocurrencies play as a safe haven for the citizens of countries that suffer from economic and currency instability as well as geopolitical stress.”

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Bitcoin #BTC #SafeHaven #CryptoNews #Gold #Silver #CryptoMarket #Geopolitics #DigitalAssets #MarketTrends

South Korean crypto exchanges saw roughly $60 billion in cryptocurrency outflow to overseas platforms and private wallets in the second half of 2025, according to the latest findings from the country’s top financial regulator.

In a report released Wednesday, the Financial Services Commission said total outflows reached 90 trillion won ($60 billion) during the period, up 14% from 78.9 trillion won ($52.5 billion) in the first half of the year.

“It is presumed that virtual assets are being transferred abroad for arbitrage and other similar activities,” the report said.

The report also showed that while user numbers and deposits on local exchanges increased during the period, overall profitability declined.

As of the end of last year, the number of crypto exchange accounts reached 11.1 million, up 3% from June 2025. Deposits rose more sharply, climbing 31% to 8.1 trillion won ($5.4 billion).

This growth did not translate into higher profits. The country’s 18 operating exchanges reported 380.7 billion won ($253.4 million) in operating profit in the second half, down 38% from 617.8 billion won ($411.2 million) in the first half.

The FSC estimated South Korea’s total crypto market capitalization at 87.2 trillion won (about $58 billion) at the end of 2025, down 8% from the first half of the year. Average daily transaction volume during the period was 5.4 trillion won ($3.6 billion), a 15% decline from the first half.

The regulator noted that declines in major crypto prices toward the end of last year likely contributed to the drop in volumes and exchange profitability.

The broader crypto market remains well below its October 2025 peak, when bitcoin hit an all-time high of around $126,080. Amid ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and a hawkish U.S. Federal Reserve outlook, bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies have stayed relatively stable in recent days.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#SouthKorea #CryptoOutflows #CryptoMarket #CryptoNews #Blockchain #DigitalAssets #CryptoExchange #CryptoAsia #CryptoData #CryptoTrends #Bitcoin #BTC #Altcoins #CryptoFlow #OnChain #CryptoTrading #MarketAnalysis #CryptoRegulation #GlobalCrypto #CryptoEconomy

Major crypto asset manager Grayscale has filed to list the Grayscale HYPE ETF, an exchange-traded fund that would track the native Hyperliquid token.

Hyperliquid is a high-performance Layer 1 blockchain focused on decentralized perpetual futures trading.

The network is currently the largest venue for onchain perps, according to The Block’s data.

According to the S-1 filing on Friday, the Grayscale HYPE ETF would trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol GHYP if approved. Like Grayscale’s other funds, it would tap Coinbase Custody as a custodian and use CoinDesk’s Benchmark pricing data.

RELATED INDICES

The filing also notes that HYPE staking is currently prohibited, though there is a “Staking Condition” that could be met in the future.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, now led by Paul Atkins, an appointee of President Donald Trump, has moved to approve a range of crypto-related funds, though the introduction of staking rewards has been slower.

Grayscale, a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, is not the first to file a HYPE fund. Major crypto ETF players 21Shares, Bitwise and 21Shares filed late last year.

A relative newcomer in the crypto space, Hyperliquid has quickly gained prominence. While the project is barred to U.S. users, the recently formed Hyperliquid Policy Center is working on lobbying efforts in Washington DC.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Grayscale #HYPE #Hyperliquid #CryptoETF #CryptoNews #DeFi #Perps #DEX #Blockchain #CryptoMarket #DigitalAssets #CryptoInvesting #Web3 #Altcoins #CryptoFunds

Iran has begun extracting payments of up to $2mn per tanker for passage through the Strait of Hormuz, as the informal permits-for-passage system allowing only tankers from “friendly countries” through develops quickly, according to The Financial Times citing shipping data.

“Iran is charging $2mn per tanker to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The Financial Times reported the payment. The IRGC confirms it by radio. And the world’s most important chokepoint has been converted from a military blockade into a toll road,” according to the report.

American military planners were not expecting Iran to be able to keep the Strait open for the transits of selected oil tankers when preparing for this war. However, Tehran has introduced an informal system which allows tankers from certain countries to pass through the states. According to estimates around 90 tankers have traversed the chokepoint since the war broke out on February 28, Iran has continued to export its oil unabated and is earning a reported $150mn a day from allowing tankers from China, India, Bangladesh and others to sail through the narrow waterway.

Since the business began about a week ago, a bureaucracy is now being built up that effectively transfers what once was an open international waterway governed by the maritime right of innocent passage into a toll road that is entirely controlled by Tehran.

US President Donald Trump demanded the passage be opened by the US Navy, but the Navy has declared the passage “too dangerous to traverse.” Trump called on his Nato allies to send warships, but they have all refused. During an EU summit on March 19, the European powers said that they would not send any naval support until after the war was over.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has also suggested creating a “safe corridor” in order to allow ships into the Persian Gulf to supply essentials, similar to the Black Sea Grain Initiative introduced in the Ukraine conflict in 2022 to allow Ukrainian grain exports to reach international markets. The gulf states are almost entirely dependent on the import of food and other basics, as there is little domestic agricultural production in the region. The 100-odd tankers trapped in the Gulf also need to be resupplied.

The permits-for-passage system described relies on direct coordination with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. There is no central control as the Strait is currently controlled by one of the IRGC’s 31 autonomous cells acting under standing orders issued ahead of the war as part of its Decentralized Mosaic Defence doctrine (DMD).

“A tanker operator contacts intermediaries. The intermediaries negotiate with the IRGC. A fee is agreed, reportedly up to $2mn per voyage. Payment is made in cash, cryptocurrency, or barter. The vessel receives clearance. The IRGC hails the tanker on VHF radio, verifies its Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder data, and grants passage,” the report said.

“Roughly 89 to 90 vessels, including 16 oil tankers, have successfully made the journey between March 1 and March 15 under some form of IRGC clearance,” according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence. Not all ships were required to pay. Iranian-linked ship passes for free and other ships given permission via government-to-government negotiations, such as ships belonging to India, have also been given permits gratis, according to reports. On March 18 one ship that tried to traverse the strait without permission and with its AIS off was struck by an Iranian missile and turned back, according to reports.

The additional costs are compounding already elevated shipping expenses. “The $2mn sits on top of war-risk insurance that has surged to 3 to 5% of hull value where coverage exists at all,” according to Shanaka Anslem Perera, an independent analyst. Pre-war, the cost of insurance was a fraction of a percentage point of a tanker’s hull value. For a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC), the workhorse of the oil business, valued at $120mn, that implies premiums of $3.6mn to $6mn for a single voyage, alongside charter rates that have risen to as much as $800,000 per day.

“The total cost of moving a single cargo of crude through Hormuz now exceeds what it cost to move an entire fleet through the strait six months ago,” according to Perera.

These costs are feeding directly into global prices. “The $2mn is not a bribe. It is a tax levied by the IRGC on global commerce, collected at the narrowest point of the world’s most concentrated energy transit route, and passed through to 4bn people downstream,” Perera said. “The IRGC did not just close the strait. It reopened it selectively, on its terms, at its price.”

Ref: https://www.intellinews.com/iran-s-permits-for-passage-through-hormuz-system-is-developing-fast-432822/

#Iran #Hormuz #OilMarket #EnergyCrisis #OilSupply #GlobalEconomy #Geopolitics #MiddleEast #OilTrade #Shipping #WarRisk #EnergyNews #GlobalTrade #OilPrices #Maritime

A court in Buenos Aires has ordered a nationwide block of Polymarket, citing concerns that the crypto-based prediction platform operates as an unlicensed online betting system.

The ruling, issued by Judge Susana Parada, directs internet service providers to restrict access to the site across Argentina and requires Google and Apple to remove or limit access to its mobile applications, according to a report from local outlet Buenos Aires Times.

Prosecutors said the platform allowed users to place wagers without identity or age verification, enabling accounts to be created within minutes. Authorities argued that such gaps left minors able to participate without controls.

The investigation was triggered by a complaint from Buenos Aires’ gambling regulator, which said the platform was operating without authorization in the jurisdiction. Officials also said checks with national lottery bodies found no evidence that Polymarket held licenses in Argentina.

Scrutiny intensified after trading activity linked to Argentina’s inflation data drew attention, according to local reports. Trading volume on a Polymarket contract tied to February inflation rose to roughly $91,000 shortly before official figures were released, which some observers said raised questions about a potential information leak.

The Block reached out to Polymarket for comment.

Global crackdown on prediction venues

Regulatory pressure on prediction markets has mounted globally in recent months. Several European countries, including Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy, have already restricted access to Polymarket, while other jurisdictions, such as Colombia, have taken similar action.

The platform itself maintains geo-restrictions in multiple regions to comply with local laws, blocking users in parts of Europe, Asia, and sanctioned jurisdictions.

Regulators have increasingly focused on whether prediction markets resemble financial instruments or unlicensed gambling venues. Concerns have ranged from consumer protection to market integrity, particularly where contracts touch on sensitive real-world events.

Recent controversies have also kept the sector in focus. Polymarket has faced backlash over certain high-profile markets and reports of alleged insider-linked betting activity.

The platform is also navigating legal challenges in the United States as authorities work toward clearer rules. In Washington, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has signaled plans to establish a federal regulatory framework for prediction markets while some states crack down on sector leaders like Polymarket and Kalshi.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Argentina #Polymarket #PredictionMarket #CryptoRegulation #CryptoLaw #OnlineBetting #CryptoNews #Blockchain #CryptoSecurity #GlobalRegulation #Fintech #DigitalAssets #CryptoTrading #MarketIntegrity #TechPolicy

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit on Friday denied Custodia Bank’s petition for rehearing en banc in its lawsuit against the Federal Reserve, effectively closing the crypto bank’s last serious appellate avenue to force the central bank to grant it a master account.

The full court voted 7-3 against rehearing, leaving intact an October 2025 panel ruling that held the Fed has discretion to approve or deny master account applications from eligible institutions. That 2-1 panel decision had itself upheld a March 2024 district court ruling in Wyoming reaching the same conclusion.

Custodia, a Wyoming-chartered special purpose depository institution founded by Wall Street veteran Caitlin Long, first applied for a master account in October 2020. The Kansas City Fed confirmed the application contained “no showstoppers” in early 2021 but ultimately denied it in January 2023, citing concerns about the bank’s crypto-focused business model.

Custodia sued in June 2022, initially over the 19-month processing delay and later arguing that the Monetary Control Act entitled any eligible depository institution to a master account as a matter of law. Courts at every level have disagreed.

Judge Timothy Tymkovich authored a dissent from Friday’s en banc denial, warning that the majority’s interpretation hands regional Federal Reserve Banks unchecked power over which state-chartered institutions can access the payments system. He wrote that the ruling raises constitutional concerns about granting such authority to officials who are not appointed under Article II of the Constitution.

“Without a master account, a bank cannot operate in the modern banking system,” Tymkovich wrote in the dissent. He added that denying one is functionally equivalent to vetoing a state-issued bank charter, undermining the country’s dual banking system. Judge Allison Eid joined the dissent.

Custodia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A person familiar with the bank’s efforts told CoinDesk on Friday that Custodia is still pursuing access. The bank’s remaining legal option would be a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, a long shot in any circumstance, though the constitutional questions raised by Tymkovich and the involvement of former solicitors general Paul Clement and Don Verrilli as amici at earlier stages of the case could lend the petition some credibility.

Fed granted Kraken limited master account

The timing is striking. Custodia’s courtroom defeat lands just days after the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City granted Kraken Financial a limited-purpose master account, making it the first crypto-native firm to receive one. TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg said he expects the Kraken approval to be the first of many.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller proposed the concept of a “skinny master account” last year, designed to offer eligible institutions access to Fed payment rails while restricting features like discount window lending and interest on reserves. The Fed Board is now actively developing that framework, according to TD Cowen. The Fed also withdrew restrictive 2023 guidance that had underpinned its earlier posture toward crypto firms, including Custodia.

Whether Custodia elects to petition the Supreme Court, attempts to reapply for a master account through the new administrative channels, or both, remains to be seen. Custodia has continued to build in the meantime, launching the Avit stablecoin in partnership with Vantage Bank last year

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Custodia #FederalReserve #Fed #CryptoBank #CryptoRegulation #CryptoLaw #MasterAccount #CryptoPolicy #BankingAccess #DigitalAssets #CryptoNews #USCrypto #Stablecoin #Fintech #CryptoBanking

TON blockchain’s ecosystem conference set for May in Dubai has been cancelled amid the escalating conflict in the Middle East, the organization said Thursday.

“Unfortunately, due to the Middle East conflict and safety conditions in the UAE area, we have made the decision to cancel Gateway Dubai, originally scheduled for May 1 and 2, 2026,” TON posted on X. “This was a difficult call, but the safety and well-being of our community always comes first.”

Shortly after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes in Iran, the country attacked the United Arab Emirates with missiles and drones. Dubai, a popular city among crypto entrepreneurs, is the largest city in the UAE.

TON Gateway planned to bring together builders and developers working in the TON ecosystem. Event planners said Thursday they are “examining different formats to produce a Gateway event before the end of this year.”

“The UAE has borne the brunt of more than two-thirds of Iran’s strikes; the state targeted in part, say analysts, for its deep military and intelligence partnerships with western powers, and Dubai’s reputation as a favored centre for global finance and western holidays,” The Guardian reported Wednesday.

Dubai, along with many other cities in the region, has experienced severe travel disruptions due to the ongoing conflict.

The major crypto event Token2049, also set in Dubai and scheduled for next month, will go ahead as planned, according to Fortune.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#TON #TONBlockchain #CryptoEvent #Dubai #CryptoNews #Blockchain #Web3 #CryptoCommunity #CryptoConference #MiddleEast #TechEvents #CryptoIndustry #CryptoBuilders #TONGateway #CryptoUpdate

The United States’ two most prominent financial market regulators have agreed to collaborate in a manner that fosters innovation, including crypto regulation and new digital asset products.

Both the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said Wednesday that they had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, that is meant “to guide coordination and collaboration between the two agencies to support lawful innovation, uphold market integrity, and ensure investor and customer protection.”

“For decades, regulatory turf wars, duplicative agency registrations, and different sets of regulations between the SEC and CFTC have stifled innovation and pushed market participants to other jurisdictions,” SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said in a statement.

The SEC and CFTC said the agreement represents a commitment to foster innovation and treat market participants respectfully. Among their planned initiatives, the two agencies said they would work on federal policy that provides a “fit-for-purpose regulatory framework for crypto assets and other emerging technologies.”

In the MOU, the two agencies also committed to “closely coordinating and cooperating to remove obstacles where appropriate, to the lawful introduction of … crypto asset products.”

Although MOUs are generally non-binding, the fact that the two agencies are officially voicing their intention to work closely together on policy measures that include crypto is likely a welcome sign for digital asset advocates. Although President Donald Trump’s administration has been more pro-crypto than the previous administration, there is still a lot of work to be done.

“America’s financial markets are the envy of the world because they scale and adapt to meet investor demands. Like our markets, the CFTC’s and SEC’s regulatory frameworks must also evolve and modernize to accommodate the needs of our market participants,” CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said. “This Memorandum of Understanding solidifies the agencies’ commitment to harmonize regulatory frameworks to provide comprehensive and seamless financial market oversight.”

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#SEC #CFTC #CryptoPolicy #CryptoRegulation #CryptoLaw #CryptoNews #DigitalAssets #Blockchain #Web3 #CryptoMarket #Fintech #CryptoInnovation #CryptoFramework #CryptoProducts #CryptoUSA #CryptoRules #CryptoIndustry #MarketRegulation #Finance #CryptoFuture

A federal judge in Manhattan on Friday dismissed a sweeping Anti-Terrorism Act lawsuit against Binance, founder Changpeng Zhao, and Binance.US operator BAM Trading, finding that 535 plaintiffs failed to plausibly allege that the exchange’s conduct aided specific terrorist attacks, according to a 62-page opinion from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Judge Jeannette A. Vargas ruled that plaintiffs adequately alleged Binance was “generally aware” of its role in terrorist financing, citing the exchange’s well-documented history of flouting AML/CFT rules, serving sanctioned Iranian users, and knowingly hosting wallets tied to designated terrorist organizations. But the court held that awareness alone was insufficient under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which requires plaintiffs to show “knowing and substantial assistance” with a nexus to the attacks themselves.

The plaintiffs, victims and relatives of victims of attacks perpetrated between 2016 and 2024 by groups including Hamas, Hezbollah, the IRGC, al-Qaeda, PIJ, and ISIS, had argued that Binance’s deliberate violations of sanctions law and anti-money laundering requirements effectively funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorist organizations. The amended complaint detailed billions in Iranian transactions processed through Binance, the exchange’s hosting of sanctioned nested exchange Garantex, and internal communications showing executives were aware that terrorists transacted on the platform.

The court acknowledged this misconduct at length but concluded the allegations did not connect Binance’s actions to the specific attacks. With respect to Hamas and PIJ, which the court called “a closer call,” the opinion noted approximately $56 million in Hamas-linked and $59 million in PIJ-linked transfers through Binance, and the exchange’s own admission that it knew Hamas was transacting on the platform as early as 2019. But the court found the plaintiffs’ theory still depended on fungibility, meaning the logic that because Binance facilitated illicit transactions broadly, some of those funds must have supported the attacks.

Critically, the ruling applied the Second Circuit’s 2025 decision in Ashley v. Deutsche Bank, which held that a bank’s general facilitation of money laundering for clients with terrorist ties was too attenuated to support JASTA liability. Judge Vargas explicitly noted that a separate Binance terrorism case, Raanan v. Binance, had survived a motion to dismiss in February 2025 on similar Hamas and PIJ allegations, but noted that Raanan was decided before the Second Circuit’s Ashley ruling, which she concluded requires dismissal on the facts here.

Vargas also dismissed three conspiracy counts and a primary liability claim brought by the family of an infant who died after a Wizard Spider ransomware attack disrupted hospital systems. The court declined to reach personal jurisdiction questions regarding Zhao and BAM, having dismissed all claims on the merits.

The judge did not mince words about the 891-page complaint, calling its length “wholly unnecessary” and noting that a 30-page section on the evolution of Iranian politics from the 1970s onward “added little to the Plaintiffs’ claims.” But she granted the plaintiffs 60 days to file an amended complaint, signaling that the deficiencies could potentially be cured with more specific allegations about wallet ownership, transaction timing, and the relationship between particular account holders and the attacks.

Binance General Counsel Eleanor Hughes called the ruling “a complete vindication” and said the company is “confident that no amended pleading will be able to cure the fundamental deficiencies the Court identified.” Zhao, who pleaded guilty to federal AML and sanctions charges in November 2023 and was later pardoned by President Trump, had accused the plaintiffs of attempting to “piggyback” on Binance’s $4.3 billion criminal settlement.

The dismissal arrives during an intense period of scrutiny over Binance’s compliance record. The exchange has spent the past two weeks battling allegations from Sen. Richard Blumenthal and media reports that internal investigators discovered $1.7 billion in flows to Iran-linked entities and were subsequently fired. The Raanan case, brought by October 7 survivors, and a third lawsuit filed in North Dakota in November 2025, remain active.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Binance #CZ #CryptoNews #CryptoLaw #CryptoRegulation #CryptoExchange #Blockchain #CryptoMarket #Fintech #DigitalAssets #CryptoCompliance #AML #CryptoCase #CryptoIndustry #Web3 #CryptoPolicy #CryptoUpdate #CryptoJustice #CryptoRisk #CryptoWorld

PEI Licensing, the owner of the Penguin apparel brand, alleges that the Pudgy Penguins NFT brand has committed trademark infringement, according to a filing with the federal court.

The company said that although it sent Pudgy Penguins a cease-and-desist in October 2023, the NFT brand continued with its strategy of producing retail goods, which has had the effect of diluting the value of PEI’s Penguin brand, founded in 1955.

Pudgy Penguins has, in recent years, built a retail business that includes plush toys and apparel. In PEI’s complaint — filed with the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida — it provides examples of where it alleges Pudgy Penguins has infringed on its trademark.

“Defendant knew, or should have known, that Defendant’s unauthorized use of Defendant’s Marks would cause an injury via deception of representation, omission, or practice that is likely to mislead consumers, as it gives rise to the incorrect belief that Defendant has some connection with PEI,” Penguin apparel’s lawyers said.

Pudgy Penguins didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Image: Example of alleged trademark infringement. Source: PEI’s complaint
Pudgy pivot

As the NFT market crumbled and most popular brands struggled to forge alternative revenue streams built on physical products, Pudgy Penguins began selling plush toys in 2023. The brand offered its products in major retail chains like Walmart and Target.

Less than a year later, Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz announced that his company had sold over one million toys.

Pudgy Penguins has also produced and sold apparel like hats, hoodies, and sweatshirts, some of which were shown in PEI’s complaint. PEI is seeking monetary damages such as “all profits received by Defendant from sales and revenues of any kind … and all damages sustained by PEI as a result of Defendant’s actions,” the filing said

Ref: http://www.animalverse.club

#PudgyPenguins #PenguinBrand #NFTNews #NFT #CryptoNews #Trademark #IPLaw #Web3 #NFTCommunity #NFTProject #CryptoUpdate #NFTMarket #BrandDispute #Web3News #NFTBrand #CryptoLaw #NFTDrama #BlockchainNews #IPDispute #NFTWorld

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong didn’t mince words when he said the SocialFi experiments tested out in the Base App last year “didn’t quite work” in a recent episode of David Senra’s eponymous podcast.

“In the current incarnation, it wasn’t quite there in my view,” Armstrong said. “We tried it as an experiment. It didn’t quite work. The App has since pivoted to be more focused on trading and being a self-custodial version of the Coinbase app.”

In July 2025, Coinbase relaunched its noncustodial Coinbase Wallet as the Base App, pitched as an all-in-one “everything app” combining features of onchain social media, messaging, and gaming with its existing trading features.

Jesse Pollak, the head of Base at Coinbase, also heavily promoted the app’s Creator Coin features, which tokenized social media posts and creator accounts. Users could double-tap posts to buy associated tokens, with value flowing to creators.

“People were thinking of it as a way to reward and thank the creator,” Armstrong said.

However, Coinbase has since scaled back the SocialFi elements of the Base App to focus on trading. In January, Pollak posted to social media that “the app felt overly focused on social” and would “lean into a finance-first UX.”

The following month, Base also removed its Farcaster-powered social feed, shortly after that decentralized social media platform’s founding team sold the protocol.

While some notable creator coins briefly captured an audience, practically none of the tokens launched have maintained their value. For instance, Nick Shirley, a video journalist who went viral last year for reporting on alleged daycare fraud in Minnesota, launched what is often considered to be the most high-profile creator coin via Zora. $thenickshirley rallied to a $15 million market cap after being promoted by Armstrong, only for the token to crater.

Armstrong noted that “many posts” had “thousands of dollars worth of value at the terminal end” of Base’s SocialFi experiment.

“I think something is going to work in SocialFi,” Armstrong said, noting that the “tokenomics have not been quite figured out yet” and that the token’s “need to have some durability.”

Success and struggle

Still, at its height, Base grew to become the most popular chain for token launches in part due to the near-zero-cost token deployment enabled by Zora’s content coin mechanism. Asset manager Franklin Templeton also previously praised Base’s SocialFi appeal, largely due to the excitement around the launch of FriendTech v2 in 2024, which has since petered out.

Base’s creator coins are far from the only SocialFi experiment to struggle. In January, Aave Labs spun out Lens Protocol. Zora, meanwhile, has launched a new “attention markets” feature allowing users to bet on social media trends on Solana.

The Base protocol itself is undergoing a significant shift by replacing much of the OP Stack it was built on with bespoke parts. The Base team is also reportedly considering launching a native token.

Although Armstrong noted Base App’s SocialFi features were “polarizing,” he appeared grateful for the experience. The Coinbase co-founder and CEO noted that the company runs internal funding initiatives inspired by venture capital, where employees can pitch ideas to receive corporate funds, sometimes leading to outsized returns.

USDC, the second-largest stablecoin by market cap, was one such idea Armstrong initially “voted no” on, he said.

Ref : http://www.paykalken.com

#Coinbase #BrianArmstrong #BaseApp #BaseChain #SocialFi #CryptoNews #Web3 #Onchain #CreatorCoin #Tokenomics #CryptoMarket #USDC #Zora #Farcaster #FriendTech #DeFi #Blockchain #Altcoins #CryptoUpdate #FinanceFirst

Riot Platforms said it registered a record year for revenue in 2025 as the Bitcoin miner leans heavily into becoming a major provider of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing infrastructure.

The company said it posted $647.4 million in revenue last year, up from $376.7 million in 2024. Riot also produced 5,686 bitcoin in 2025, up from 4,828 the previous year, as BTC’s price soared during much of the fiscal period. The company now holds over 18,000 bitcoin.

“2025 marked a watershed year for Riot, defined by a strategic evolution in our business that has transformed our future trajectory,” Riot CEO Jason Les said in a statement. “By unlocking our large, nearly two-gigawatt power portfolio for high-demand data center infrastructure, we are driving significant shareholder value.”

In January, Riot inked a data center deal with semiconductor firm AMD. Shortly after, activist investor Starboard Value said Riot Platforms’ new focus on AI and HPC could be worth as much as $21 billion while encouraging the bitcoin miner to pivot as rivals also aim to reposition themselves as AI data center operators.

“We have successfully commenced operations on the first phase of the lease with AMD, generating revenue for Riot, as of January 2026,” Les also said. “This partnership validates our unique ability to rapidly deliver power capacity at scale for the world’s leading technology companies.”

Riot said the average cost of mining bitcoin increased last year to $49,645, as compared with $32,216 per bitcoin in 2024. Still, with bitcoin’s price soaring to an all-time high in 2025, Riot’s BTC mining revenue climbed to $576.3 million last year, jumping from $321.0 million during the previous period.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

RiotPlatforms #BitcoinMining #BTC #CryptoNews #AIInfrastructure #HPC #DataCenter #AMD #WallStreet #CryptoStocks #BitcoinBull #AIShift #TechInvesting #Blockchain #DigitalAssets

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is working to regain momentum on crypto oversight after what Chairman Paul Atkins described as a “big missed opportunity” under the prior administration.

On Friday, Atkins criticized the agency under former Chair Gary Gensler and said the SEC hadn’t tried to adapt to innovations during a fireside chat at the University of Texas.

“This has been a big missed opportunity for the United States that we’re quickly … trying to make up time for,” Atkins said.

Under Gensler, the SEC took a more cautious — and enforcement-heavy — stance toward crypto, asserting that many digital assets were securities and bringing numerous cases against firms, largely over registration violations.

Since the start of the Trump administration, however, the SEC has adopted a more industry-friendly posture. The agency established a crypto task force, dropped numerous enforcement cases against big industry players, and embarked on “Project Crypto” to modernize its rules.

While Atkins noted that individual cryptocurrencies may rise and fall, he expressed particular enthusiasm for the broader potential of distributed ledger technology, especially in payment clearing and settlement systems.

Earlier this week, the SEC granted WisdomTree exemptive relief for the 24/7 trading and instant settlement for its WisdomTree Treasury Money Market Digital Fund — marking a first in the U.S.

“We’ve approved tokenized money market mutual funds, and to come will be tokenized bank deposits,” Atkins said.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#SEC #Crypto #CryptoRegulation #PaulAtkins #GaryGensler #TrumpAdministration #DigitalAssets #Blockchain #DLT #Tokenization #MoneyMarketFund #WisdomTree #24x7Trading #InstantSettlement #ProjectCrypto

PayPal’s consumer scale, including peer-to-peer app Venmo, would strengthen Stripe’s expansion beyond its core merchant business, Mizuho analysts said Tuesday after reports that a deal could be in the works.

Mizuho analysts Dan Dolev and Alexander Jenkins issued the note after Bloomberg reported Stripe expressed interest in acquiring all or part of PayPal. The privately held payments firm recently marked its valuation at $159 billion, compared with PayPal’s roughly $43 billion market capitalization.

“Stripe’s recent valuation of $159 billion dwarfs PayPal’s $43 billion market cap, making a transaction feasible from a size standpoint,” the analysts wrote.

On potential upside, Mizuho said Stripe, long viewed primarily as a business-to-business payments provider, would gain a scaled consumer brand through PayPal and Venmo, which the analysts described as the “ultimate” peer-to-peer franchise.

Additionally, the analysts suggested PayPal’s Braintree merchant infrastructure could help Stripe compete with its payments processor rival Adyen. “Braintree would add about ~$700 billion of total payment volume (TPV), which is material,” they said, adding that Stripe’s annual TPV is roughly $1.4 trillion.

Both PayPal and Stripe are already active in the stablecoin sector. Combined, Stripe and PayPal could become a stronger player in the space, the analysts said.

Stripe acquired stablecoin platform Bridge last year, while PayPal launched its own dollar-pegged token in 2023 through a partnership with Paxos.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Venmo #PayPal #Stripe #Mizuho #Paxos #Stablecoins #Financial #Fintech

Solana Company (NASDAQ: HSDT) is kicking off an infrastructure buildout in the Asia-Pacific region, a first step in directly supporting Solana staking and validator operations.

This so-called Pacific Backbone initiative will involve developing a high-speed, low-latency network initially starting with connections between Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, and Hong Kong, according to an announcement on Monday.

“The reality is, we see an opportunity to improve Solana staking and validation for users across Asia,” said Cosmo Jiang, general partner at Pantera Capital Management, a major HSDT backer. “We believe this investment roadmap will be critical for anyone holding and building on Solana and we expect it to diversify our revenue.”

Pantera, alongside Summer Capital, co-led the more than $500 million funding round that launched the Solana Company in September amid the so-called digital asset treasury investment trend that has since reversed. The firm was initially pitched as a SOL token holding vehicle that would also invest in other Solana operations.

Project Backbone will address gaps in Solana’s network coverage in the APAC region, helping to reduce staking and validation costs while boosting performance to meet the needs of market makers, high-frequency traders, and other Solana partners. Using “state-of-the-art hardware” may help capture “more value within the staking business,” according to the statement.

“In order to target mass adoption, Solana Company intends to build out DeFi, liquid staking, AMMs, RPC services, and execution services for its traditional finance partners in the APAC region,” the firm noted. “Solana Company plans to begin building out the network infrastructure immediately, expanding to optimizing performance and adopting new technologies by the second half of 2026, and anticipates launching liquidity related new products and services within the next 12 to 18 months.”

RELATED INDICES

Earlier this month, the firm partnered with Anchorage Digital and Kamino on a joint venture to enable institutions to borrow against natively staked SOL while keeping assets in custody.

The Solana Company has held over 2.2 million SOL since it began acquiring tokens in October, making it the second-largest publicly traded holder, according to The Block’s data. The total staked amount of Solana by public companies has largely held consistent despite a market retrenching that has seen Solana DAT valuations crater to all-time lows in recent days.

HSDT shares were down 8.3% Monday morning. Other crypto-related stocks are in the red on Monday, with bellwether crypto stock Coinbase down over 3% and major Ethereum treasury firm Bitmine down over 4%, according to The Block’s equities tracker. The biggest loser is small-cap Bitcoin treasury Prenetics, which is down over 7%.

HSDT is down over 90% since the firm first pivoted towards its Solana-related strategy in September. The firm, formerly Helius Medical Technologies, reportedly maintains its neurotech and medical device operations.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Pantera #Solana #Company #APAC #staking #infrastructure #SOL #Crypto #Blockchain

Vitalik Buterin is building a “cypherpunk principled non-ugly ethereum” as part of his future vision for the largest onchain ecosystem.

In response to a post on X arguing that Buterin “should let the original ethereum die a slow and painful death by fragmentation (tempo, reth, l2s, app chains, institutions, etc) and rebuild it as a cypherpunk chain from first principles on risc v just to show who was the boss,” Buterin responded:

“I’m actually trying to do something even more ambitious: Create ‘cypherpunk principled non-ugly ethereum’ as a bolt-on to the present-day system, in a way that’s as tightly integrated and interoperable as possible, and then grow it over time, in the mean time making sure ethereum itself gains the cypherpunk and simplicity properties that just necessarily have to be system-wide (eg. censorship resistance, zk prover friendliness, consensus properties).”

FOCIL inclusion

The statement comes on the heels of the controversial Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL) mechanism being officially “scheduled for inclusion” by Ethereum devs on Thursday for the upcoming Hegota hard fork. FOCIL was named as the consensus-layer (CL) headliner for Hegota, which is scheduled for late 2026, following the next Glamsterdam hard fork in the coming months, during Thursday’s All Core Devs call.

FOCIL, entered as EIP-7805, is essentially a bid to ensure Ethereum remains censorship-resistant at the protocol level by forcing validators to include all transactions. It does this by enabling committees of Ethereum validators to enforce transaction inclusion in blocks via fork-choice rules and inclusion lists (IL).

If a proposed block ignores valid transactions from the committee’s ILs — including transactions that may violate OFAC sanctions — the chain forks away from it, guaranteeing that any valid, public-mempool transaction gets included within a bounded number of slots.

FOCIL has been a controversial proposal, and was previously excluded from inclusion in Glamsterdam. Critics argue it could create legal ramifications for Ethereum validators and increase protocol complexity. Still, FOCIL, alongside other protocol improvements, is key to Buterin’s vision for the future of a more cypherpunk and “harder” Ethereum.

Harder Ethereum

In another X post, Buterin noted that FOCIL pairs well with EIP-8141, an account abstraction upgrade also as part of Hegota that would enable native support for smart wallets, multisig, quantum-resistant keys, and gas-sponsored privacy transactions without wrappers.

“With EIP-8141 (AA), transactions from smart wallets, privacy protocols, etc, could be sent *through a public mempool, and directly received by a FOCIL includer*, no wrappers, ‘public broadcasters’, or other intermediaries required,” Buterin wrote. “Ethereum is going hard.”

Both upgrades are part of the Ethereum Foundation’s trilateral goals of scaling, hardening, and simplifying the Ethereum base layer, as laid out in a recent blog outlining “protocol priorities for 2026.”

“Harden the L1 is a new track, and it reflects something we think deserves dedicated focus: making sure that as Ethereum scales and evolves, it retains the properties that make it valuable in the first place,” the authors wrote.

At the same time, Buterin has also pushed to make a “lean Ethereum,” by reducing technological complexity and bloat through a full network redesign. Part of this initiative is the so-called “Beam Chain” that would be ZK-native from the start by enshrining ZK-EVM proofs directly into L1 validation.

Leaner Ethereum

Another part is the long-term goal of swapping out the Ethereum Virtual Machine for RISC-V as Ethereum’s native virtual machine. RISC-V supports compiling a wider range of programming languages like Solidity, Rust, and C, while offering greater ZK support, for the Ethereum execution layer, devs have argued.

All this comes months into a radical refocusing on Ethereum’s base layer scalability and functionality that kicked off last year amid increasing competition from alternative chains like Solana. As part of the reorganization of the Ethereum Foundation, Buterin has become a more vocal leader of the ecosystem, seen by a willingness to back controversial and difficult decisions.

This arguably came to a head earlier this month when Buterin more or less abandoned the “rollup-centric roadmap” he had championed for years, which looked to scale Ethereum through a network of Layer 2s.

Rather than allowing Ethereum to “die a slow and painful death by fragmentation,” from other Layer 1 users of the EVM, like Tempo, or other parasitic chains, Buterin has once again affirmed a decision to build in action.

“Ethereum has already made jet engine changes in-flight once (the merge), we can do it ~4 times more! (state tree, Lean consensus, ZK-EVM verification, VM change),” he said on Friday.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#VitalikButerin #Cypherpunk #Ethereum #FOCIL #ETH #Onchain #OnchainEcosystem #Crypto #Blockchain

Newity, a fintech firm focused on facilitating small business loans, has raised $11 million in a strategic funding round as it explores bringing those loans onchain.

CMT Digital, a division of trading and investment firm CMT Group, led the round, Newity said Thursday. Additional participants included private and institutional investors, Newity co-founder and co-CEO David Cody told The Block, but he declined to disclose their names.

Cody said the round marks Newity’s first fundraise, which began at the end of 2024 and closed in December 2025. The round was structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE), he said, declining to disclose Newity’s valuation or whether any investors received board or advisory seats.

Newity was founded in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic by Cody and co-CEO Luke LaHaie to help small businesses navigate funding challenges during the Paycheck Protection Program, a U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) loan initiative launched to support businesses during the crisis. After the program ended in May 2021, Newity shifted its focus to SBA 7(a) government-backed loans and growth term loans.

Newity itself is not an SBA lender. Instead, it acts as a lending service provider to participating SBA lender Northeast Bank, which ultimately originates and approves the loans, according to its website.

Since launch, Newity said it has processed and serviced more than $12 billion in financing for over 125,000 small businesses. Cody said the average loan size is approximately $118,800 life-to-date, with a maximum loan size of $350,000.

Asked how using Newity differs from applying directly through an SBA lender, Cody said borrowers working directly with lenders must follow each lender’s process and timeline, which can vary significantly. “Some lenders have adopted technology; others still rely heavily on paper,” he said.

Newity, by contrast, offers a fully online application process, automated documentation workflows, and a dedicated team to move applications forward. Borrowers can receive funding in as little as three weeks through Newity, compared with traditional timelines that can exceed 12 weeks, he added.

Cody said Newity’s “AI-first underwriting platform” analyzes hundreds of data points — including credit checks, identity verification, and tax document summaries — to determine eligibility and streamline the application process. “This allows borrowers to receive a prequalified loan amount in less than 10 minutes and funding in as little as 21 days, rather than waiting 12+ weeks,” he said.

Newity generates revenue through loan-processing fees. On its crypto strategy, Cody said the firm is exploring various options to take loans onchain and expects to announce its path in the first quarter.

“We’re not improving small business lending, we’re reinventing the financial infrastructure that connects entrepreneurs to capital,” LaHaie said. “AI and blockchain give us the infrastructure to empower our team to operate at the scale that this market demands.”

Newity said small businesses represent 99.9% of U.S. firms and employ nearly half the nation’s workforce, yet face a $350 billion annual funding shortfall — a gap the company aims to address.

Newity is headquartered in Chicago and has about 115 employees, most of whom work from the office, with some remote staff, Cody said. The firm is actively hiring across partner, marketing, and technology roles, he added.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Fintech #Newity #Business #Loans #Onchain #CMT #CMTDigital #CMTGroup

Ethereum’s tokenized real-world asset market has topped $17 billion in value issued on its mainnet, according to The Block’s data, as large players like BlackRock and JPMorgan continue bringing traditional funds onchain.

The figure represents a nearly 315% increase from a year earlier, when the sector was worth $4.1 billion, and reinforces Ethereum’s dominance as the leading blockchain for tokenized finance. Ethereum currently accounts for approximately 34% of total onchain RWA value across all networks. Stablecoins on Ethereum mainnet have also climbed above $175 billion in aggregate market capitalization, underscoring the network’s role as the primary settlement layer for tokenized dollar-denominated assets.

RWA boom

The growth highlights an accelerating shift by traditional financial institutions toward blockchain-based versions of familiar products. Wall Street incumbents, including BlackRock and JPMorgan, are building blockchain-native payments, savings, and investment instruments on Ethereum.

BlackRock’s tokenized Treasury fund, BUIDL, has emerged as the flagship product in the category. Launched in 2024 via Securitize, the fund invests in short-term U.S. government securities and has grown to become the largest tokenized money-market vehicle on public blockchain infrastructure.

Earlier this month, BlackRock expanded BUIDL’s utility by enabling direct onchain trading through UniswapX in collaboration with Securitize and Uniswap Labs, marking one of the clearest intersections yet between institutional capital and decentralized finance.

JPMorgan has also entered the arena. In December, the bank launched its first tokenized money-market fund on Ethereum, seeding it with $100 million and targeting qualified investors. The move builds on the firm’s broader blockchain strategy and signals that tokenized yield products are gaining traction beyond crypto-native issuers.

Recent market activity suggests the momentum is not confined to Treasuries alone. This week, Wintermute launched institutional trading for tokenized gold, forecasting that the tokenized commodities segment could reach $15 billion in 2026. Commodities already represent more than $5 billion of Ethereum’s RWA footprint.

The surge in Ethereum-based RWAs also aligns with broader projections from major financial institutions. Standard Chartered has previously estimated that tokenized real-world assets could reach $2 trillion by 2028, with the vast majority issued on Ethereum. ARK Invest has projected that tokenized assets could climb to roughly $11 trillion by 2030 from current levels.

Disclaimer: Evgeny Gaevoy, the founder and CEO of Wintermute, previously sat on The Block’s board of directors from April 2023 to early November 2023 and remains a minority shareholder.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Ethereum #tokenized #RWA #ETH #BlackRock #JPMorgan #traditional #onchain #Crypto #Cryptocurrency

X head of product Nikita Bier confirmed Saturday that the social media platform will roll out Smart Cashtags in the coming weeks, enabling users to trade stocks and cryptocurrencies directly from their timeline. The forthcoming update represents the most concrete step yet toward integrating financial services into the “super-app” platform’s core experience.

Bier also promised new efforts to crack down on apps that create spam posts or encourage raiding and harassment, the latest in a series of proclamations that have sometimes drawn the ire of crypto traders on the platform.

“I genuinely want crypto to proliferate on X, but applications that create incentives to spam, raid, and harass random users are not the way,” Bier wrote in a post on X. “And yes, we are launching a number of features in a couple weeks, including Smart Cashtags that will enable you to trade stocks and crypto directly from timeline.”

“All automation & spam via scraping or API will be flagged and evaluated extensively,” Christopher Park, director of X’s developer platform, added in his own X post. “No more bots/programs that do or incentivize large scale platform manipulation, engagement farming, spam, & scraping.”

Bier first teased the feature on Jan. 11, describing X as “the best source for financial news” and noting that “hundreds of billions of dollars are deployed based on things people read here.” At the time, he said the team was collecting feedback ahead of a public release targeting February.

Smart Cashtags build on X’s existing $TICKER system, where users prefix symbols with a dollar sign to create clickable links. Under the new system, users will be able to specify an exact asset or smart contract address when posting a ticker. Tapping the tag will display live price charts, related posts across the platform, and direct trading options. Early mockups showed integrated “Buy” and “Sell” buttons alongside price data.

Bier has said the API powering Smart Cashtags will work in near real-time for anything minted on-chain. That opens the door for smaller-cap tokens not listed on centralized exchanges to appear alongside equities like $NVDA.

Saturday’s comments came in response to a thread about third-party crypto apps on X. Argentine tech entrepreneur Santiago Siri had argued that OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger was leaving substantial token fees on the table by resisting tokenization efforts. Bier called Siri’s characterization of “claim your fees” mechanics “the most dishonest perspective” he had read and said X would update its API rules to block apps that create fee pools for non-consenting users.

Smart Cashtags fit into a broader financial services push at X. Then-CEO Linda Yaccarino announced a partnership with Visa in January 2025 to launch X Money, a digital wallet for peer-to-peer payments. By June, she told the Financial Times the platform would roll out in-app trading and investing under the X Money banner.

The company holds money transmitter licenses in more than 40 U.S. states, though it has yet to secure approval in New York after withdrawing its application there. Elon Musk said at an xAI presentation earlier this month that X Money has completed internal employee testing and will open to a limited external beta within one to two months. It’s been about three years and three months since Musk acquired Twitter, now X, for about $44 billion.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#SmartCashtags #crypto #Cryptocurrency #Financial #Twitter

Birch Hill Holdings, an institutional onchain credit infrastructure company focused on lending and tokenized asset markets, has closed a $2.5 million pre-seed funding round co-led by ParaFi Capital and Castle Island Ventures.

The round was structured as a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE). It opened in late November and closed in early 2026, Birch Hill CEO Bhavin Vaid told The Block. Nascent, FalconX Ventures, JST Digital, and Flowdesk also participated in the round, alongside angel backers such as Bluerock founder and CEO Ramin Kamfar. The company did not disclose a post-money valuation.

The New York-based firm said it is building institutional lending strategies designed to prioritize capital preservation and structured risk controls, with its initial vaults launching on Morpho. Birch Hill has onboarded as an institutionally focused curator on the platform and plans to expand to additional protocols, such as Euler, Vaid said.

“Credit markets stand to benefit from the efficiencies of blockchain-based settlement, but institutional participation has been limited by the need for stronger risk oversight and operational clarity,” Vaid said in a statement. “Our goal is to bring the discipline of traditional credit investing together with modern infrastructure in a way that meets institutional standards for governance, transparency, and risk management.”

Birch Hill’s founding team brings experience from both traditional finance and digital asset infrastructure. Vaid began his career in structured credit at Goldman Sachs and later invested in private equity at Cerberus Capital, before joining digital asset investment firm 10T Holdings in 2021. CTO Jack Forlines and COO Connor Flanagan previously worked on institutional risk systems within BlackRock’s Aladdin platform before moving into digital asset data and infrastructure. Forlines and Flanagan later co-founded Unit Zero Labs, a research firm focused on onchain protocol analytics, now operating as Birch Hill Labs and underpinning the firm’s vault design and quantitative risk framework.

Building institutional risk controls for onchain credit

Birch Hill’s approach centers on its Collateral Risk Framework, which tracks collateral liquidity, oracle redundancy, and market-level metrics in real time. The firm said the system is structured to support transparent governance and documentation for regulatory and client reporting.

“Most onchain risk models focus on liquidation parameters and protocol-level safety,” Vaid told The Block. “Our framework layers institutional-grade monitoring and real-time tracking of collateral quality, liquidity depth, and oracle integrity, paired with an auditable governance layer designed for regulatory and client reporting. It’s built for allocators who need to explain their risk exposures to a board or compliance officer, not just avoid bad debt.”

Vaid said Birch Hill is targeting traditional asset managers, credit-focused originators, registered investment advisers, family offices, and other funds with fiduciary obligations seeking compliant, auditable exposure to onchain credit, and is currently in active discussions with multiple parties.

Rather than aggregating yield from existing DeFi pools, the company said it aims to expand credit generation by bringing real-world assets and institutional borrowers onchain, a thesis it argues requires different infrastructure and risk controls.

As a curator, Birch Hill sets vault parameters, selects eligible collateral, establishes risk limits, and oversees ongoing monitoring. Its institutional focus translates into tighter collateral standards, more conservative loan-to-value ratios, and detailed exposure reporting, according to the team.

“For example, we may exclude collateral assets that other curators accept if the liquidity profile or oracle coverage doesn’t meet our standards,” Vaid said. “We also provide institutional clients with detailed reporting on vault exposures, collateral composition, and risk metrics — the same information they’d expect from a traditional credit manager. Every parameter change has a documented rationale. The goal is vaults that institutions can underwrite and explain to their stakeholders.”

With the fresh capital in place, Birch Hill said it plans to expand its engineering and risk infrastructure teams and pursue regulatory authorizations, including potential registration as a registered investment adviser and evaluating broker-dealer registration in the United States.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#BirchHill #ParaFi #PayFiCapital #Onchain #Web3 #DeFi #Blockchain #Crypto #Cryptocurrency

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined an updated framework for how blockchain technology can intersect with artificial intelligence, arguing that Ethereum’s role lies less in pursuing artificial general intelligence and more in shaping how AI systems interact, coordinate, and govern in the real world.

In a post shared to X on Monday, Buterin revisited and revised ideas he first outlined two years ago on the overlap between crypto and AI.

According to him, the two fields are often discussed from “completely separate philosophical perspectives.” He cautioned against framing progress as a race toward AGI, describing that mindset as an undifferentiated form of acceleration rather than a deliberate choice about direction.

“To me, Ethereum, and my own view of how our civilization should do AGI, are precisely about choosing a positive direction rather than embracing undifferentiated acceleration of the arrow,” Buterin wrote.

Rather than focusing on building autonomous superintelligence, Buterin’s updated view centers on practical, near-term applications where Ethereum could serve as part of a broader stack enabling privacy, decentralization, and human agency in an AI-saturated world.

Tooling and mechanics

One pillar of that vision involves tooling that allows people to interact with AI systems in more trustless and private ways. Buterin pointed to local large language models, cryptographic payment mechanisms for AI services, and client-side verification techniques that reduce reliance on centralized intermediaries when accessing AI capabilities.

Another focus is Ethereum’s potential role as an economic coordination layer for AI-related activity.

In that context, Buterin described onchain mechanisms that could support AI agents transacting with one another, posting security deposits, or building reputational histories. This could enable more decentralized AI architectures rather than systems run entirely within a single organization, Buterin said.

Buterin also revisited a long-standing cypherpunk ideal: minimizing trust by maximizing verification. He argued that LLMs could make that vision more practical by handling tasks that humans cannot realistically perform at scale, such as independently verifying smart contracts, transaction proposals, or protocol trust assumptions.

Governance

In the governance and markets domain, Buterin suggested that AI could help unlock ideas that have struggled to function in practice due to human attention limits. Prediction markets, decentralized governance systems, and complex voting mechanisms could become more viable, he said, if AI tools are used to scale human judgment rather than replace it.

He stated that the combined vision is aligned with what he has previously described as “defensive acceleration,” or d/acc — using technology to strengthen decentralized cooperation and societal resilience while avoiding the concentration of power.

The post builds on Buterin’s earlier analysis of four broad crypto-AI overlap areas — AI as an actor, interface, rule-set, or objective — first published in January 2024. It also aligns with his broader recent calls for rethinking DAO design beyond token-based voting models, including the use of zero-knowledge proofs and AI to reduce governance capture and decision fatigue.

Buterin accompanied the post with a simple two-by-two chart mapping Ethereum’s AI-related ambitions along axes of infrastructure versus impact and survival versus flourishing, underscoring that the ideas span both defensive and transformative use cases.

“There’s a lot to build,” he wrote.

Vitalik Buterin maps Ethereum’s role at the intersection of AI | Image: Vitalik Buterin/X

Ref http://www.paykalken.com

#VitalikButerin #Ethereum #ETH #Crypto #Cryptocurrency

Labs is sunsetting the Avara “umbrella brand,” which once housed its semi-related family of Web3 projects, including Lens, the decentralized social media project recently acquired by Mask, and the Family wallet, which Aave co-founder Stani Kulechov said on Tuesday will be wound down.
“All current and future products, including the Aave mobile app, Aave Pro, and Aave Kit, will operate under Aave Labs,” Avara said on X. “This change simplifies our brand surface under Aave Labs and focuses our resources on building Aave brand awareness and introducing DeFi to millions of new users globally.”

The move to sunset Avara and cut loose its non-lending-related intellectual property comes amid a shift in focus at Aave Labs to recenter attention on the Aave lending protocol.

It also comes amid a simmering debate between Aave Labs, the private company that initially developed the Aave lending protocol, and the Aave DAO, which has largely shepherded the Aave smart contracts and protocol parameters since the Avara rebrand in 2023, over which entity ultimately controls Aave.

Aave is by far the dominant onchain credit system on Ethereum.

Labs vs. DAO?

Last December, Aave Labs sparked tensions within the Aave community after integrating CoW Swap into the official aave.com interface and redirecting swap fees that previously funded the Aave DAO treasury to a private wallet controlled by Aave Labs.

That move surfaced questions over who truly owns Aave. The Aave DAO, governed by AAVE token holders, is said to control the protocol’s smart contracts, risk parameters, and protocol-level revenue, while Aave Labs owns key off-chain elements like the official frontend (aave.com), branding, domains, social media, IP, trademarks, and other user-facing products.

A community-led “poison pill” proposal to legally seize Aave Labs’ IP, code, brand assets, and equity — essentially turning the company into a DAO subsidiary — failed during a governance vote, in part due to Aave Labs’ and Kulechov’s concentrated token holdings. However, Kulechov has since proposed sharing future non-protocol revenue with AAVE holders and revisiting the IP and branding question.

At the time of the Avara rebrand, a Finnish phrase for “seeing more than you see,” Kulechov said the company wanted to expand beyond its DeFi niche into other web3 verticals. Now, however, it appears that Kulechov is once again championing DeFi.

In January, Aave announced it sold the Lens web3 social media protocol and it will now look to wind down its Family wallet-related projects.

“As part of this transition, the Avara brand is no longer required as we go all in on bringing Aave to the masses,” Kulechov said on X. “We are now united as one team of world-class designers, engineers, and smart contract experts, aligned around a single mission: bringing DeFi to everyone.”

Late last year, Aave unveiled an upgraded Aave App offering high-yield savings options, including interest rates of up to 9% and “insurance-backed protection” on deposits up to $1 million. Kulechov also previously said the protocol is pursuing a long-term plan to scale toward trillions of dollars in onchain financial activity, following the conclusion of a multi-year regulatory probe by U.S. authorities.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported Kulechov had purchased a five-story Victorian mansion in London’s Notting Hill for £22 million, or about $30 million, sparking some pushback.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#AaveLabs #Avara #wallet #DeFi #DecentralizeFinance #Web3 #Crypto #Cryptocurrency #Blockchain

Representatives from Coinbase, major crypto trade groups and banking organizations are set to convene at the White House next week for a summit on one of the industry’s most contentious issues: how stablecoin rewards should be treated.

The summit, to be hosted by the White House’s crypto council, was first reported this week by Reuters.

The early-afternoon session on Monday is expected to include representatives from Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken, The Digital Chamber, the Crypto Council for Innovation and the Blockchain Association, according to sources familiar with the plans who spoke to The Block on Friday. Representatives from the American Bankers Association are also expected to attend, the sources said. The ABA and other bank trade organizations did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Block also reached out to USDC stablecoin issuer Circle, which one source said may attend, but did not immediately receive a response.

The White House likewise did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Stablecoin pain point

The issue around how to treat stablecoin rewards has become a major point of contention as lawmakers work to pass crypto legislation that would regulate the industry as a whole, and divvy up authority between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Banking trade groups have pushed back against the GENIUS Act, a stablecoin framework that cleared Congress over the summer.

While the new law prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying interest directly to holders, it leaves room for third-party platforms, including exchanges like Coinbase, to offer rewards. Bank groups say that allowing firms to offer yield could siphon away deposits, while Coinbase has pushed back and said banks are trying to stifle competition.

Tensions seemingly came to a head at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week when JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon pointed a finger at Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and said he was “full of sh**,” The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Other bank executives also gave Armstrong the cold shoulder while in Switzerland, according to WSJ reporters.

This week, the Senate Agriculture Committee advanced its legislation to regulate the crypto industry, though it did not muster Democratic support. The Senate Banking Committee still needs to hold its hearing to advance its version of a bill after it was postponed earlier this month following Coinbase’s move to pull support.

One version would eventually need to head to the Senate floor, and after that, will have to be reconciled with what the House passed over the summer with Clarity before a final bill heads to the president’s desk for a signature.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Coinbase #crypto #bank #Stablecoin #WhiteHouse #Cryptocurrency #Financial

Doppler, an onchain token creation and launch protocol, has raised $9 million in a seed funding round as it looks to become the default infrastructure for tokenized assets.

The round was led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Variant, Figment Capital, and Coinbase Ventures, Doppler said Thursday. Doppler is one of two products built by Whetstone Research, alongside Pure Markets, an interface where users can swap any asset created through Doppler for “free.”

The seed round was raised by Whetstone Research in a single tranche in the second quarter of 2025, Austin Adams, creator of the Doppler protocol and founder of Whetstone Research, told The Block. Adams said the startup waited to announce the round until now as it enters its next phase of growth. Whetstone had previously raised a $1.3 million pre-seed round led by Variant, with participation from Uniswap Ventures, Nascent, and Credibly Neutral, Adams said.

Both rounds were structured as simple agreements for future equity, or SAFEs, with token warrants, Adams added. He declined to disclose the valuation.

What is Doppler?

Since launching nine months ago, Doppler says it has become the default platform for launching new tokens on Base and is now aiming to extend that position across blockchains and asset classes.

Adams said Doppler differentiates itself from platforms like Pump.fun by focusing on market structure and outcomes, rather than simply making it easy to create a token.

“Anyone can create a token on Doppler — but serious teams work with us because they understand that the mechanism of how you create a market matters as much as what token you’re creating,” Adams said. “Doppler is the easiest to integrate, off the shelf, audited solution, that will help teams get to market in as little as two weeks. Doppler’s existing integrations with aggregators, info explorers, and routers ensure assets are widely distributed and available wherever users care.”

Doppler compresses what Adams described as months of infrastructure work — including token deployment, vesting, liquidity bootstrapping, governance, and fee routing — into a single interface. At the core of the protocol are price discovery auctions designed to limit the impact of snipers while generating protocol-owned liquidity from day one, allowing teams to focus on building products rather than custom launch mechanics, Adams said.

Doppler has entered the market at a time when some argue that crypto does not need more tokens. Adams said the market needs higher-quality assets to invest in, and that necessitates new assets. Doppler said more than 40,000 assets are created daily using its platform, representing over $1.5 billion in value and more than $1 billion in cumulative trading volume.

As for its business model, Doppler earns trading fees on assets created through the protocol, regardless of where they are traded, Adams said.

The Whetstone team currently consists of about 10 people primarily based in New York City, Adams said, adding that he is actively hiring protocol engineers and researchers.

Notably, Whetstone, Doppler, and Pure Markets all use distinct domains for their websites. Adams said Doppler.lol, which the team internally jokes stands for “liquidity on line,” focuses on bringing liquidity online and making it easily accessible. Pure.st is aimed at what Adams described as the “purest” or highest-quality assets that can be created permissionlessly through its interface. Whetstone.cc, he added, reflects the firm’s broader mission, with “.cc” standing for “custom capital.”

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Token #Doppler #PanteraCapital
#StartUp #Tech #Crypto #CryptoStartUp

Global crypto investment products issued by asset managers like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale have swung sharply back into outflow territory, shedding $1.73 billion last week in the largest weekly pullback since mid-November 2025, according to CoinShares data.

The reversal almost fully unwound the $2.2 billion of inflows recorded a week earlier, a signal of the speed at which institutional positioning turned amid a deteriorating macro and price backdrop.

James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, noted dwindling expectations for interest rate cuts, negative price momentum, and frustration that digital assets have yet to participate in the debasement trade have likely driven the renewed selling pressure.

Spot prices also reflected institutional activity. Bitcoin fell over 5% in the last seven days to trade under $89,000, as The Block’s price page shows. Ether also slumped nearly 10%, and the majors retraced amid macro headwinds.

Bitcoin products lead withdrawals

By asset, bitcoin funds led the retreat with $1.09 billion in outflows. CoinShares data also showed modest inflows into short-bitcoin products, though the firm said overall sentiment has yet to meaningfully improve since the October 2025 price shock. Ether ETPs followed with $630 million in weekly outflows, while XRP products saw $18.2 million exit, signaling broad-based risk aversion.

Meanwhile, outflows were heavily concentrated in the United States, which accounted for nearly $1.8 billion of weekly redemptions.

However, sentiment elsewhere was more mixed. Switzerland, Germany, and Canada added to positions despite recent price weakness, with crypto funds in the countries logging inflows of $32.5 million, $19.1 million and $33.5 million, respectively, while products in Sweden and the Netherlands posted smaller outflows.

Solana was a notable exception, attracting $17.1 million in inflows and bucking the wider trend. Smaller allocations also flowed into products tracking Binance and Chainlink, according to the report.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#CoinsShares #Binance #Chainlink #GlobaCrypto #ETPs #Bearish #ETF #ETFs #Crypto #Cryptocurrency #Exchange

An exchange-traded fund tracking
DOGE+0.078%
is the latest addition to 21shares’ growing crypto lineup, marking another step in the memecoin’s push into traditional finance.

On Thursday, the crypto ETF issuer launched the 21shares Dogecoin ETF, which trades under the ticker TDOG on the Nasdaq exchange.

“Dogecoin is a unique asset with a global community and expanding real-world use cases,” said Federico Brokate, global head of business development at 21shares, in a statement. “TDOG offers investors regulated, physically backed exposure to DOGE through an ETF structure they already understand and trust.”

21shares has also previously rolled out ETFs tracking bitcoin, ether, Solana, and XRP. The firm noted that it is the only ETF provider endorsed by the Dogecoin Foundation.

“TDOG is another step toward making Dogecoin accessible through established financial structures, supporting broader participation as the ecosystem matures, and we’re pleased to see our partnership with 21shares helping advance that progress,” said Marco Margiotta, CEO of the foundation’s corporate arm, House of Doge, in a statement.

Slow roll for doge ETFs

Dogecoin is the tenth largest crypto by market capitalization at $20 billion, according to The Block’s price data. The token began as a joke based on the Shiba Inu meme before gaining mainstream attention, helped in part by frequent public endorsements from billionaire Elon Musk.

The first spot Dogecoin ETF hit the U.S. market in September 2025, with the REX-Osprey DOGE ETF. The fund (DOJE) generated $17 million in day-one trading volume, which at the time put it as one of the top-five biggest debuts of the year. But despite subsequent listings from Bitwise and Grayscale, Wall Street’s appetite for doge has been minimal.

Given its role as a memecoin, the flop from the ETF side is not a surprise to some.

“It’s the people’s coin, built on memes, community energy, and viral moments,” Dominant Strategies CEO Alan Orwick told Sherwood News earlier this month. “The fact that Dogecoin can pump 21% in a week without a single dollar of ETF inflows shows the community still has pricing power independent of Wall Street.”

House of Doge is trying to fix that. The firm is working with Nasdaq-listed Brag House Holdings to develop a new mobile app expected to launch in the first half of 2026. The app seeks to broaden Dogecoin’s role in payments and commerce by pairing a self-custodial wallet with integrated tools for merchants.

“We want to see Dogecoin become a widely used global decentralized currency,” House of Doge’s Margiotta said in a statement.

Meanwhile, firms such as Bit Origin, CleanCore, and Thumzup have established corporate Dogecoin treasuries, the latter of which has explored potential rewards integration; Thumzup’s platform enables users to earn cash rewards for sharing authentic content about advertisers’ products.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Dogecoin #ETF #WallStreet #memecoin #DOGE #Nasdaq #exchange #Financial #Investment

After nearly a year in federal custody, Caroline Ellison — the former co-CEO of Alameda Research — is scheduled to be released on Wednesday.

Ellison, 31, is set to leave a “residential reentry management” facility in New York on Wednesday, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website. Often referred to as halfway houses, the facilities help inmates who are about to be released with finding jobs, managing finances, and other services.

Ellison had been in community confinement since October 2025 after being transferred from a federal prison in Connecticut, Business Insider reported in December. She began her two-year prison sentence in November 2024 in Connecticut.

Ellison led Alameda Research, the trading firm later found to have far closer ties to crypto exchange FTX than previously disclosed. Ellison is also the ex-girlfriend of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who founded both FTX and Alameda Research.

FTX collapsed in November 2022 after filing for bankruptcy following a liquidity crisis and fraud allegations.

Ellison pled guilty the following month, in December 2022, to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of actual wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Ellison cooperated with the government and testified against Bankman-Fried during his criminal trial in 2023. She told the court that Bankman-Fried directed her to commit the crimes that led to the exchange’s downfall. Ellison said Alameda had access to customer deposits through an unlimited line of credit and also had direct access to customer deposits that were sent to Alameda’s bank account known as “fiat@”.

Bankman-Fried was sentenced to nearly 25 years in prison in March and ordered to pay back up to $11 billion in investor and lender losses. In recent months, Bankman-Fried has been angling for a presidential pardon.

Former FTX Chief Technology Officer Gary Wang and FTX’s former co-lead engineer Nishad Singh were also criminally charged, but cooperated with authorities and were given no prison time. Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission said it was seeking to bar all three — Ellison, Wang, and Singh — from being officers or directors of any public company for several years.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Alameda #AlamedaResearch #CarolineEllison #FTX #Crypto #CryptoCurrency #Exchange #CryptoExchange

Crypto-native payment cards are experiencing rapid adoption, with daily transactions surging 22x from December 2024 levels to reach nearly 60,000 transactions by mid-January 2026. These cards function by automatically converting cryptocurrency holdings into fiat currency at the point of sale, enabling users to spend digital assets at traditional merchants without manually offramping through exchanges.

The growth trajectory reflects increasing demand for practical crypto spending solutions. Rather than selling assets on centralized exchanges and withdrawing to traditional bank accounts, users can seamlessly spend their holdings through Visa or Mastercard-enabled crypto cards, streamlining the offramp process while maintaining exposure to digital assets until the moment of purchase.

Transaction activity has translated into nearly $4 million in daily USD volume processed through these cards. Etherfi currently dominates the space, accounting for roughly half of all transactions, though the competitive landscape includes multiple providers, including Gnosis, Metamask, and Solayer, among others.

Card issuers are still refining their economic models, with significant variance in incentive structures and fee arrangements across providers. Many cards enhance appeal by offering yields generated through DeFi lending protocols and other onchain sources, effectively allowing users to earn returns on balances while maintaining spending flexibility.

The Block recently published a comprehensive review comparing features across providers.

The dominance of Visa and Mastercard infrastructure within crypto card issuance demonstrates how traditional payments giants have established meaningful footholds in digital asset adoption. These legacy payment networks have found a foothold in facilitating the bridge between decentralized finance and everyday commerce.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#CryptoCard #CryptoPayment #Crypto #Cryptocurrency #CryptoNative #Financial

Happy Friday! Crypto’s next phase may be defined less by hype and more by plumbing, with macro forces and institutional flows reshaping how bitcoin trades in 2026, according to Kraken Global Economist Thomas Perfumo.

In today’s newsletter, Jefferies strategist Christopher Wood removes a 10% bitcoin allocation from his model portfolio over quantum risks, Google Play is set to ban overseas crypto exchanges from its South Korea store, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon says the firm is actively exploring tokenization and prediction markets, and more.

Meanwhile, X users celebrate a crackdown on the “plague” of AI-led reply spam as InfoFi platforms seek alternatives.

P.S. Don’t forget to check out The Funding, a biweekly rundown of crypto VC trends. It’s a great read — and just like The Daily, it’s free to subscribe!

Jefferies strategist drops 10% bitcoin allocation over quantum computing fears

Christopher Wood, global head of equity strategy at investment bank Jefferies, removed bitcoin entirely from his “GREED & fear” model portfolio, reallocating the full 10% position into physical gold and gold-mining equities.

Wood said rising concerns around quantum computing pose an existential risk to bitcoin’s long-term store-of-value thesis, even if near-term price impact appears limited.
He cited a 2025 Chaincode Labs study estimating that 20% to 50% of circulating bitcoin could be vulnerable to quantum-enabled key extraction.
The shift marks a reversal for one of bitcoin’s earlier institutional advocates, who originally added the asset as a digital alternative to gold during the pandemic-era stimulus cycle once mature custody infrastructure was in place.
Industry attention to quantum risk has intensified following recent advances in quantum computing, alongside warnings from experts about potential exposure tied to reused addresses.
Governments and crypto projects are already adjusting, with El Salvador restructuring its bitcoin holdings and new startups raising capital aiming to harden networks against future quantum threats.
Google Play to ban overseas crypto exchanges from South Korea store

Google Play Store is set to block unregistered overseas crypto exchanges and wallets in South Korea starting Jan. 28, requiring all platforms to register as VASPs with the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit.

The move effectively removes global exchanges like Binance, Bybit, and OKX from Android app downloads and updates, while favoring 27 locally registered platforms, including Upbit and Bithumb.
Overseas exchanges face steep barriers to compliance, as Korea’s registration process requires local security and AML certifications that are widely viewed as impractical for foreign firms.
According to local media reports, while users can still access global exchanges via web browsers, regulators risk pushing retail traders toward VPNs and APK downloads, increasing security risks in one of the world’s most active crypto markets.
Goldman Sachs CEO says firm is actively exploring tokenization and prediction markets

Goldman Sachs is actively evaluating where tokenization, stablecoins, and prediction markets could enhance its existing businesses, according to CEO David Solomon.

During Thursday’s earnings call, Solomon said regulatory clarity, particularly around U.S. market structure legislation, remains central to how the bank is approaching such innovations.
His comments come as Goldman and other major banks previously disclosed that they are jointly exploring a bank-backed digital money initiative tied to regulated stablecoin-like structures.
On prediction markets, Solomon said he recently met with two large platforms and spent several hours learning about their operations.
He added that Goldman has specific teams studying the sector, particularly products regulated by the CFTC, which he said resemble derivatives-style contract activity.
Iran’s crypto ecosystem nears $8B as bitcoin withdrawals surge during protests: Chainalysis

Iran’s crypto ecosystem grew to $7.8 billion in 2025, with onchain activity closely tracking domestic unrest and geopolitical flashpoints, according to Chainalysis.

Wallets linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accounted for roughly half of all value received by Iranian crypto addresses in the fourth quarter, underscoring the group’s expanding financial footprint, the blockchain forensics firm said.
Chainalysis observed sharp spikes in activity around conflict and cyber incidents, highlighting crypto’s dual use as both a civilian financial lifeline and a funding rail for sanctioned actors.
During recent mass protests, bitcoin withdrawals from Iranian exchanges to personal wallets surged, behavior the firm said may reflect a flight to safety amid political and economic instability.
House Democrats press SEC over pausing Justin Sun case, citing ‘pay-to-play’ concerns

Three House Democrats accused the SEC of retreating from crypto enforcement, asking Chair Paul Atkins to explain why high-profile cases, including one involving Tron founder Justin Sun, have been paused or dismissed.

In a letter to Atkins, lawmakers said the pullback has coincided with a surge in crypto political spending, arguing the timing creates the appearance of a “pay-to-play” dynamic that undermines investor protection.
The letter zeroed in on the prolonged pause of the Sun case, citing his large investments in Trump-linked crypto ventures and raising concerns about preferential treatment and national security risks.
A spokesperson for Sun rejected the allegations as factually incorrect and politically motivated, said the SEC matter remains pending, and emphasized Sun’s cooperation with regulators and his role in initiatives like the T3 Financial Crime Unit to combat blockchain abuse.
Looking ahead to next week

UK CPI inflation and U.S. mortgage data are out on Wednesday. U.S. jobless claims, PCE, and GDP figures are scheduled for Thursday.
World Economic Forum annual meetings begin on Monday.
ZKsync, deBridge, ApeCoin, Melania Meme, Official Trump, LayerZero, Kaito, and Wormhole are among the crypto projects set for token unlocks.
Web3 Hub Davos 2026 kicks off in Switzerland. The Nashville Energy & Mining Summit 2026 also gets underway.

Russia is moving closer to opening its cryptocurrency market to non-qualified investors through new legislation, according to a Tuesday report from state news agency TASS.

Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma’s Financial Markets Committee, reportedly said the draft bill is ready and will be taken up during the spring parliamentary session.

“A bill has already been prepared that removes cryptocurrencies from special financial regulation, meaning they will become commonplace in our lives,” Aksakov said in a translated interview with the Russia-24 television channel, cited by TASS.

However, non-qualified traders will have limited access to the retail market, Aksakov added. Under the expected framework, individuals who do not meet Russia’s qualified-investor criteria will be allowed to purchase up to 300,000 rubles ($3,800) worth of crypto. Professional market participants, he said, face no such limits.

Beyond domestic trading, Aksakov expects the legislation to facilitate international usage of crypto, including cross-border settlements and the overseas placement of Russian-issued tokens.

His comments follow earlier reports that Russia is preparing to ease restrictions on retail participation in the crypto market.

In December, the Bank of Russia proposed a framework that would allow non-qualified investors to trade crypto after passing a risk-awareness test, while continuing to prohibit anonymous or privacy-focused digital assets.

Around the same time, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said the Finance Ministry and the central bank were working on a coordinated approach to permit retail access with defined risk thresholds, according to a TASS report. Both institutions have indicated that capping the volume of retail crypto transactions and investments would be essential to reducing systemic risk.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Russia #Crypto #Cryptocurrency #CryptoLaw #CryptoMarket #Financial

Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden introduced a bill that clarifies that software developers who do not control users’ funds are not considered money transmitters — as senators quickly work on prepping a broader cryptocurrency bill.

Lummis and Wyden’s Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act was introduced on Monday and mirrors work done in the House. The bill would create clear guardrails for when developers and service providers would be exempt from money transmitting laws.

“Forcing developers who write code to follow the same rules as exchanges or brokers is technologically illiterate and a recipe for violating Americans’ privacy and free speech rights,” Wyden said in a statement.

The Senate bill is likely to be included in the current version of the Senate Banking Committee’s crypto market structure legislation, a person familiar with the matter told The Block. The Senate Banking Committee, on which Wyden and Lummis are both members, has been barreling towards a hearing on Thursday to amend and vote on sweeping legislation to regulate the crypto industry at large. Text of the broader bill is expected to be released early this week.

The Senate Agriculture Committee was also slated to hold a hearing on Thursday to mark up its broader crypto market structure bill, but that’s since been delayed to later this month, according to reporting from Punchbowl News on Monday.

Senators, the crypto industry, and the banking sector have been negotiating issues, such as how to treat stablecoin yield and addressing President Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest in several of his family’s crypto ventures. The role of decentralized finance has also emerged as a key point of discussion. Representatives from the DeFi Education Fund and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association met with Banking Committee members last week to advocate for protections for software developers and self-custody, a source familiar said.

The DeFi Education Fund said the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act is vital, in a statement on Monday.

“The BRCA must be included in market structure legislation, and we encourage all Congressional leaders to join Senators Lummis and Wyden in prioritizing clarity and protections for software developers building our financial future,” the organization said in a post on X.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#DigitalAsset #Crypto #Cryptocurrency. #Senators #CryptoDevelopper

The chairs of seven parliamentary committees wrote to the UK government on Sunday urging an outright ban on cryptocurrency donations to political parties, escalating a months-long debate over digital assets in British electoral politics, per local reports.

The letter, signed by business and trade select committee chair Liam Byrne and six colleagues, argues that crypto donations undermine transparency, traceability and enforcement in political finance, according to The Guardian and The Observer.

“Crypto can obscure the true source of funds, enable thousands of micro donations below disclosure thresholds, and expose UK politics to foreign interference,” Byrne said in a statement to The Guardian. “The Electoral Commission has warned that current technology makes these risks exceptionally hard to manage.”

The intervention adds pressure to the Labour government, which has been weighing a ban on crypto political donations since at least July 2025, when Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden first raised the idea publicly. Government sources told The Guardian that ministers believe cryptocurrency donations pose a risk to electoral integrity because verifying their source is difficult, but the complexity of implementing restrictions means a ban won’t be included in the Elections Bill expected to be published shortly.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage announced in May 2025 that his party would become the first in the UK to accept bitcoin and other cryptocurrency donations, positioning the move as part of a broader “crypto revolution” that would include a UK bitcoin reserve and capital gains tax cuts if the party wins power. The party received the UK’s first-ever registered crypto donation last fall, though no official declaration of its value has been made public.

The debate around crypto donations intensified in December when Electoral Commission filings revealed that Reform had received a record £9 million ($12 million) donation from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based crypto investor who holds an estimated 12% stake in Tether. While that particular donation was made in fiat currency rather than crypto, Harborne’s wealth is derived substantially from his cryptocurrency holdings, prompting Labour and the Liberal Democrats to call for regulatory investigations into potential conflicts of interest.

#UnitedKingdom #Crypto #Cryptocurrency #CryptoDonations

Tennessee’s sports betting regulator has issued cease-and-desist letters to three major prediction market platforms, escalating the nationwide clash between state gambling authorities and federally regulated events contracts exchanges.

The Tennessee Sports Wagering Council sent letters dated Jan. 9 to Kalshi, Polymarket, and Crypto.com’s North American Derivatives Exchange, according to copies of the documents published by gaming attorney Daniel Wallach and reviewed by The Block. The letters demand that all three platforms immediately cease offering sports event contracts to Tennessee customers, void all pending contracts entered into by Tennessee residents, and refund all customer deposits by January 31, 2026.

“The sports events contracts offered on Polymarket’s exchange are not compliant with these [Tennessee state consumer] protections (and many others) and are an immediate and significant threat to the public interest of Tennessee,” SWC Executive Director Mary Beth Thomas wrote in the letter to Polymarket. The letters to Kalshi and Crypto.com contained nearly identical language.

All three platforms are registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as designated contract markets, a federal designation that allows them to offer event-based derivatives contracts nationwide. The platforms have argued that CFTC oversight preempts state gambling regulations, a position that has yielded mixed results in federal courts.

As the legal battles continue, volume on Kalshi and Polymarket continues to grow. Polymarket re-entered the US following its acquisition of derivatives exchange and clearinghouse QCX for $112 million over the summer, and began opening its US app to waitlisted users in December, though the platform has not publicly re-launched.

The Tennessee action appears to be the first publicly disclosed state-level cease-and-desist targeting Polymarket. Polymarket currently offers only sports event contracts to US users.

Tennessee’s letters threaten a range of penalties for non-compliance. Under the Tennessee Sports Gaming Act, the SWC can impose fines of $10,000 for a first offense, $15,000 for a second offense, and $25,000 for subsequent violations against any person offering wagers without a state license. The regulator also warned it would seek injunctive relief in state court.

More significantly, the letters cite Tennessee’s criminal gambling statutes, which classify gambling promotion as a Class B misdemeanor and aggravated gambling promotion as a Class E felony. Thomas wrote that failure to comply would result in a referral to law enforcement for further investigation.

Tennessee had been signaling opposition to prediction markets for months before taking enforcement action. In April 2025, the SWC submitted a letter to the CFTC ahead of the agency’s prediction markets roundtable, urging regulators to prohibit sports event contracts. Thomas warned that CFTC-regulated platforms were offering what Tennessee considers illegal wagers without complying with state consumer protections, including age restrictions, responsible gaming requirements, and anti-money laundering controls. Thomas later told the Tennessee State Funding Board in November that prediction markets posed a threat to state-regulated sportsbooks and the tax revenue they generate for education funding.

The letters were copied to Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, who joined 37 other state attorneys general in an amicus brief supporting Maryland in its ongoing lawsuit against Kalshi last month. Skrmetti had previously signed onto a June 2025 amicus brief with 33 other attorneys general challenging a federal court ruling favorable to Kalshi.

Kalshi, Polymarket, and Crypto.com did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Block. Wallach wrote on X that “lawsuits are imminent,” suggesting the platforms may follow their established playbook of challenging state enforcement in federal court.

#Polymarket #Kalshi #Crypto #Cryptocurrency #USA #CFTC

Stablecoin infrastructure provider Rain announced Friday that it has secured $250 million in a Series C funding round led by ICONIQ, achieving a valuation of $1.95 billion.

The round brings Rain’s total funding to $338 million. This follows a $58 million Series B round led by Sapphire Ventures in August 2025 and a $24.5 million raise in March of that year, The Block previously reported. Sapphire Ventures, Dragonfly, Bessemer Venture Partners, Galaxy Ventures, FirstMark, Lightspeed, Norwest, and Endeavor Catalyst also participated in the Series C round.

Rain said it plans to deploy the new capital to secure operational licenses and establish a presence in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The firm, which currently issues Visa-linked stablecoin cards in over 150 countries, is also developing integrations for the U.S. ACH and European SEPA payment networks through partner banks, Bloomberg reported.

“Stablecoins are quickly becoming the way money moves in the 21st century, but adoption by users worldwide requires cards and apps that just work,” Farooq Malik, CEO and co-founder of Rain, said in the statement. “In the last year, our active card base has increased 30x and our annualized payment volume has increased 38x, but we’re still in the early innings. This funding lets us bring that infrastructure to new markets and help additional enterprises go live and scale quickly everywhere.”

According to the statement, Rain currently facilitates compliant stablecoin card programs and wallets for over 200 partners, including Western Union, Nuvei, and KAST, with over $3 billion in annualized transactions. Programs built on Rain support both everyday consumer purchases and enterprise payments, while maintaining regulatory compliance, the firm said.

Rain’s infrastructure push aligns with sustained growth across the stablecoin sector. The total stablecoin supply currently exceeds $290 billion, according to The Block’s data dashboard.

Tether’s USDT continues to dominate the market with a supply of over $186 billion, representing approximately 64% of the total. Circle’s USDC follows with a supply of nearly $75 billion.

However, the appeal of stablecoins for near-instant, cross-border settlement has also made them a prevalent tool for illicit finance. According to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, stablecoins accounted for 84% of all illicit crypto transaction volume in 2025, which totaled a lower-bound estimate of $154 billion.

Ref: http://www.paykalken.com

#Stablecoins #Rain #Crypto #Cryptocurrency #Blockchain #Financial #USDT