Author: NBTC
Crypto exchange activity diverged sharply in 2025, as spot market growth slowed down while derivatives trading continued to expand at a strong pace. Total spot trading volume reached $18.6 trillion. This represented a 9% year-on-year increase, but it is a significant deceleration from the 154% growth recorded in 2024. Crypto Exchange Activity According to CryptoQuant, perpetual futures activity, in contrast, rose 29% year-on-year to $61.7 trillion, after adding $13.8 trillion in volume compared with the previous year. Spot trading remained highly concentrated among major venues. Binance recorded close to $7 trillion in volume and accounted for 41% of the top-10…
Swedish fintech giant Klarna, best known for its buy-now, pay-later services, is deepening its move into crypto by teaming up with Privy, a wallet infrastructure provider backed by Stripe. The two companies will co-design and test crypto wallet features aimed at helping everyday users store, use and send digital assets, the companies said, in a push to “power a new generation of crypto products for Klarna users.” The project builds on Klarna’s recent rollout of KlarnaUSD, a dollar-backed stablecoin launched with Stripe’s Bridge platform. Klarna says it now wants to make crypto more accessible by embedding it directly into its…
Dubai’s financial regulator, the DFSA, has introduced a sweeping update to the city’s crypto regulations. The new rules, which came into force on January 12, ban privacy tokens on exchanges in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). These updates aim to bring Dubai in line with global compliance standards while addressing concerns over anti-money laundering (AML) and financial crime. Privacy Token Ban Enforced Across Dubai’s Financial Free Zone The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) has implemented a ban on privacy tokens across regulated exchanges within the DIFC. The decision stems from concerns about money laundering risks and compliance challenges posed…
According to reports, global crypto exchange trading volume jumped to over $79 trillion in 2025, driven largely by futures and perpetual contracts. That surge pushed derivatives to claim most of the market’s activity, while spot trading grew at a much slower pace. Spot Volume Climbs While Futures Explode Spot trading finished the year near $18.6 trillion, an increase of roughly 9% versus the prior year. But futures and perpetuals were the real story: they totaled close to $62 trillion, making up about 77% of combined exchange volume. That heavy tilt toward derivatives shifted where liquidity and daily turnover were concentrated.…
Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange OSL Group (0863) is issuing a new U.S. dollar stablecoin with issuance handled by federally chartered crypto bank Anchorage Digital, the firms said on Thursday. The USDGO token is aimed for use in cross-border payments, treasury operations and on-chain settlements, the press release said. It will be backed one-to-one by liquid U.S. dollar assets including U.S. Treasuries, and built with embedded compliance features such as know-your-customer (KYC) checks and anti-money laundering (AML) protocols. The token will also support issuance on multiple blockchains, targeting enterprise users looking for a compliant, dollar-denominated digital asset. The news comes as…
Since missing its Jan. 15 markup date and being pushed to the end of the month, the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act is becoming a proxy fight over who gets to intermediate US dollar yield onchain — open decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and payment rails, or a narrow club of large custodians and banks? With the latest draft tightening how rewards on stablecoins can be offered, critics, including stablecoin issuers and institutional DeFi platforms, warn the bill risks exporting onchain credit offshore rather than making it safer in the United States. Coinbase revolt highlights mounting industry unease Coinbase’s decision…
Stablecoin adoption on fintech Revolut’s banking platform showed “exponential growth” in 2025, with stablecoin payment volumes increasing 156% to $10.5 billion as stablecoins carve their place in global payments. While Revolut hasn’t published official payment volume data for 2025, crypto researcher Alex Obchakevich estimated that the share of stablecoin volume on Revolut compared to total payment volumes has nearly doubled to 0.583% compared to 2024. “Despite the small absolute share, the dynamics are impressive,” Obchakevich said, citing data from Dune Analytics. Revolut’s stablecoin payment volume and estimated total payment volume for 2024-2025. Source: Obchakevich Research Bloomberg Intelligence predicted on Thursday…
RBI’s 2026 banking rules in India emphasize borrower protection and transparency measures. New norms ban foreclosure fees, speed credit score updates and clarify nominee rules. Gold loan rules standardize LTV caps, valuations, and enforce faster collateral returns. New banking rules issued by the Reserve Bank of India will take effect in 2026, influencing how loans, credit reporting and gold-backed lending are regulated. The Reserve Bank of India introduced updated norms covering loans, credit reporting and gold-backed lending, according to regulator notifications and commentary by crypto enthusiast Zia ul Haque. The updates released between June and September 2025 are meant to…
When Javier Pérez-Tasso took over as CEO of Swift in 2019, few expected the banking utility giant, known for handling trillions of dollars in transactions between banks every day, to build its own blockchain network just a few years later. This feature is a part of CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2025 list. Under Pérez-Tasso’s leadership, Swift has done just that, quietly becoming a behind-the-scenes player in blockchain’s institutional pivot. Swift — formally known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication — is more than a five-decade-old banking utility that handles trillions of dollars in transactions between banks every day. It essentially…
LI.FI, a Berlin-based protocol that aggregates onchain swaps and cross-chain bridges for developers, has raised a $29 million Series A extension led by Multicoin Capital and CoinFund, bringing its total funding to $51.7 million, the company said in a press release Thursday. The company previously raised $17.5 million in a Series A round in May 2023. The startup positions itself as a universal liquidity layer that abstracts away fragmentation across blockchains, token standards and bridging solutions. Its non-custodial, open-source infrastructure aggregates third-party bridges and decentralized exchanges behind a single integration, allowing applications to route trades and move assets across chains…