Author: NBTC
Quantum computing has advanced from being a distant theoretical threat. Now, it shapes how the crypto industry plans its infrastructure for the decades ahead. Coinbase, Ethereum, and the Ethereum Layer 2 network Optimism are publicly laying out timelines, governance frameworks, and migration strategies to prepare for a post-quantum future. This highlights a stark contrast with Bitcoin, which remains constrained by its decentralized coordination model. The Quantum Countdown Has Begun: Which Blockchain Will Survive the Future Attack? Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced the formation of an independent advisory board dedicated to quantum computing and blockchain security. We’ve set up an independent…
Aave now controls 51.5% of the DeFi lending market share, the first time any protocol has crossed the 50% threshold since 2020. The milestone arrives not through competitor collapse but through steady accumulation: Aave’s $33.37 billion in total value locked sits atop a $64.83 billion lending category that has consolidated around a single liquidity hub. The concentration raises a question DeFi has avoided for years: when one protocol becomes the ecosystem’s primary margin engine, does efficiency create fragility? The answer depends on the metric used. Aave’s total value locked (TVL) dominance reflects collateral custody, not credit exposure. DeFiLlama excludes borrowed…
After selling a significant portion of its crypto stash over the past months, Ethereum-focused treasury firm ETHZilla has now added jet engines to its balance sheet. A Friday filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shows that the company bought two CFM56-7B24 aircraft engines for $12.2 million through a newly formed subsidiary, ETHZilla Aerospace LLC. The engines are currently leased to a major airline, and ETHZilla hired Aero Engine Solutions to manage them in exchange for a monthly fee, according to the document. The deal includes a buy-sell option agreement where either party can require the other to…
Stablecoins are increasingly being used across Africa as a cheaper and faster remittance option, with remittances becoming “more important than aid” on the continent, according to Vera Songwe, a former UN under-secretary-general. Speaking at a World Economic Forum panel in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday, Songwe said traditional money transfer services in Africa often cost about $6 for every $100 sent, making cross-border payments expensive and slow. She said stablecoins are cutting fees and settlement times, allowing individuals and small businesses to move money in minutes rather than waiting days for cross-border payments to clear. Vera Songwe, right, speaks at the…
Debates on South Korea’s comprehensive Digital Asset Basic Act have spilled into 2026 with no end in sight as regulators continue to clash over who should control stablecoin issuance and how far major cryptocurrency exchanges should be regulated. Lee Eog-weon, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) chair, had promised that the second-phase virtual asset legislation would be ready by the end of last year. However, divisions between the FSC, the Bank of Korea, industry participants, and political parties have pushed implementation into the new year, with no clear timeline for resolution. What is South Korea’s disagreement about stablecoins? The Bank of…
In a landmark report published this week, global cryptocurrency research firm Four Pillars has identified a critical vulnerability plaguing modern decentralized applications: the inability to objectively verify off-chain computations. The firm’s analysis reveals how EigenCloud presents a groundbreaking solution to this fundamental trust problem, potentially transforming how artificial intelligence, prediction markets, and institutional finance interact with blockchain technology. This development arrives at a crucial moment when applications increasingly rely on complex external computations while demanding ironclad verification. EigenCloud’s Architecture for Verifiable Computation EigenCloud represents a sophisticated architectural approach that fundamentally reimagines how off-chain computations achieve verifiability. The system ingeniously combines…
Sileon, a multichain lending protocol that allows crypto users and investors to borrow and lend crypto assets across multiple blockchain networks, today announced a strategic partnership with InitVerse, an enterprise-grade Web3 infrastructure platform that simplifies decentralized application (DAPP) development and deployment. As part of the collaboration, Sileon integrated its crypto lending platform into InitVerse’s scalable Layer-1 infrastructure to enable greater growth, faster DeFi deployment, seamless access to capital, and an advanced user experience. By functioning as a multichain lending platform, Sileon aims to simplify crypto lending and borrowing across numerous blockchains. Its decentralized lending protocol, which is based in California,…
Stablecoins moved more than $35 trillion on blockchain rails last year, but only about 1% of that was for real-world payments, according to a new report by the consultancy firm McKinsey and the blockchain data firm Artemis Analytics. Their analysis estimated that only $380 billion of activity reflected actual payments, such as paying suppliers, sending remittances or funding payroll. That represents only a tiny fraction, some 0.02% of the overall global payments volume, which McKinsey put at more than $2 quadrillion annually. The finding comes at a time when competition to dominate stablecoin-based payments is intensifying. Traditional payment giants like…
If Congress fails to pass market structure legislation this year, the U.S. crypto market would not revert to the enforcement-heavy environment of 2022 and 2023, but it would remain structurally constrained at a moment when global adoption and institutional interest are accelerating, Wall Street broker Benchmark said. “The absence of legislation would cause a structural risk premium to persist across much of the digital asset ecosystem,” wrote analyst Mark Palmer in the Monday report, adding that this would cap valuation expansion for U.S.-exposed platforms. Palmer said failure to pass legislation would delay, not derail, crypto’s maturation, leaving the U.S. market…
Orbs, a Layer 3 blockchain, has announced Gryps has integrated its Perpetual Hub Ultra to bring institutional-grade onchain perpetual futures trading to the Sei Network, expanding access to advanced derivatives infrastructure designed for execution certainty, capital efficiency, and deterministic risk management. According to the announcement shared with Finbold on January 27, the integration allows Gryps to deploy a fully managed perpetuals stack on Sei using Orbs’ Layer-3 infrastructure alongside Symmio’s smart contract system. The setup provides core components such as hedging, liquidation, oracle pricing, and professional trading interfaces, without requiring Gryps to build its own complex backend infrastructure. Bringing the…