[ad_1] Key Takeaways Standard Chartered is planning to launch a crypto prime brokerage under its venture capital arm, SC Ventures. The brokerage aims to serve institutional clients with services like custody, financing, trading, and clearing for digital assets. Standard Chartered, the leading British multinational bank, is considering launching a crypto prime brokerage that would sit under the bank’s venture capital unit, SC Ventures, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing people with knowledge of the plan. Talks about the proposed service are still preliminary, and plans have yet to be finalized, the people said. The lender has pursued a broad digital asset strategy…
Author: NBTC
[ad_1] The CFTC office widely regarded as the regulator’s “top cop” has been reduced to non-existence—at the same time the Trump administration has sought to put the shrinking agency in charge of crypto and the exploding prediction market sector. The CFTC’s flagship Chicago office—which handles the agency’s most complex enforcement actions, and once employed 20 enforcement attorneys—had been slashed down to just a single enforcement lawyer, according to a new Barron’s report citing sources familiar with the office’s moves. On Monday, the final enforcement attorney remaining in the Chicago office resigned, a Barron’s reporter confirmed following the initial publication of…
[ad_1] HONG KONG — At the Consensus Hong Kong 2026 conference, the conversation surrounding decentralized finance (DeFi) took a sharp turn toward the pragmatic. The panel, “How Decentralized is DeFi Really?” saw industry leaders dismantle the “pure decentralization” myth in favor of a reality where temporary centralization is a survival mechanism. The “decentralization illusion” highlights the friction between DeFi’s permissionless ideals and its operational realities. While the goal is to replace intermediaries with smart contracts, most protocols exist on a spectrum rather than a binary state. Anand Gomes, head of Paradigm and Paradex, dismissed the idea of binary decentralization, instead…
[ad_1] Ethereum price action is showing growing downside risk as weakening liquidity and fragile rebounds increase the probability of a deeper rotation toward the $900 range low. Summary Short-term bounces lack conviction, suggesting rallies may be corrective rather than trend-changing Liquidity dynamics favor a downside sweep, with clean lows still attracting price Volatility likely to expand, if balance breaks and price seeks deeper acceptance levels Ethereum ($ETH) price continues to trade in a vulnerable position, hovering around a critical support zone known as the point of control (POC). While short-term relief bounces have emerged on lower timeframes, these moves have…
[ad_1] The Algorand Foundation announced that Brale has expanded its custom stablecoin issuance and orchestration platform to the Algorand blockchain. The move brings regulated stablecoin infrastructure to Algorand, a Layer-1 network focused on scalability, security, and fast finality. Brale is a U.S.-regulated stablecoin issuance platform. It allows businesses to launch and manage their own stablecoins with reserve management, compliance, and banking connectivity built in. Operating under U.S. money transmitter licenses, Brale combines custody, mint-and-burn processes, and compliance tools into a single system. Through APIs, enterprises and fintech companies can integrate stablecoins into payment, treasury, and finance workflows without maintaining blockchain…
[ad_1] Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of FTX and a central figure in one of the biggest scandals in the cryptocurrency world, has filed a new request for a hearing with the Southern District of New York Federal Court (SDNY). The application was registered as a “pro se” request, meaning a request made by the defendant on their own behalf. The petition submitted to the court was filed by Barbara H. Fried, Professor Emerita at Stanford University Law School. The document states that Bankman-Fried is seeking a retrial under Article 33 of the Federal Criminal Procedure Rule. A supporting legal…
[ad_1] STON.fi, one of the leading AMM protocols on The Open Network ($TON), announced that $TON-native representations of Bitcoin ($BTC) and Ethereum ($ETH) are now available within the ecosystem in a fully non-custodial DeFi format. The integration gives $TON users direct access to the two largest crypto assets, including the ability to swap them and provide liquidity, while maintaining full control over their funds. $BTC and $ETH are represented on $TON as wrapped assets issued in $TON-native format, each fully backed 1:1 by the underlying tokens and managed through smart contracts. Ethereum is available as wrapped $ETH (WETH), while Bitcoin…
[ad_1] Chinese billionaire Bitcoin miner Jiang Zhuoer argued that investors in the US stock markets are still in the early stages of developing an interest in Ethereum ($ETH). Zhuoer, who stated that he has not sold his $ETH holdings for many years, noted that the level of understanding of Ethereum by institutional capital is similar to the crypto market during the 2014-2015 period. According to Zhuoer, Bitcoin’s “digital gold” narrative offers an easily understandable framework for investors outside of traditional finance. In contrast, Ethereum’s “smart contract” based structure is more complex, taking longer for US capital to understand $ETH. He…
[ad_1] VelaFi, a stablecoin-powered financial infrastructure provider under Galactic Holdings, has raised $20 million in a Series B funding round led by XVC and Ikuyo, the company said in a press release Monday. The round also included participation from Alibaba Investment, Planetree, BAI Capital, and other global investors, bringing the company’s total funding to more than $40 million. Founded in 2020, VelaFi initially built payment infrastructure in Latin America and has since expanded into the U.S. and Asia. Its platform connects local banking rails, cross-border payment networks and major stablecoin protocols, allowing enterprises to move funds across markets more quickly…
[ad_1] TOKYO, JAPAN – February 2025. Japan’s cryptocurrency landscape stands on the brink of a significant transformation following a decisive political shift. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) overwhelming victory in the House of Representatives election has injected powerful momentum into long-awaited digital asset tax reforms. Consequently, the proposed reduction of Japan’s crypto capital gains tax from a steep 55% to a flat 20% rate is now expected to proceed without major legislative hurdles, potentially reshaping the nation’s position in the global Web3 economy. Japan’s Crypto Tax Reform Gains Unstoppable Momentum The February 8th election delivered a commanding two-thirds majority…