Author: NBTC

Private companies are gradually moving past the early stages of experimenting with artificial intelligence, with many larger firms now beginning to report measurable returns from their investments. According to a new survey by Deloitte, nearly two-thirds (64%) of private companies with an annual revenue of $500 million or more have achieved moderate to significant return on investment (ROI) from AI initiatives. This marks a sharp contrast from smaller firms, where only 11% reported such levels of returns. The findings also bring to light a broader shift in how private companies are now approaching AI. More than half (52%) of the…

Jump Crypto’s long-awaited Firedancer validator client is now quietly producing blocks on Solana mainnet, marking a turning point in the project’s years-long push to overhaul the blockchain’s performance infrastructure. “Firedancer is live and running in production,” Firedancer founding engineer Ritchie Patel told CoinDesk in an interview. “We have packed tens of millions of transactions over the last few months.” The rollout, however, is intentionally restrained. Patel said the team preferred to roll out progressively across the network rather than through a broad public launch, as the team remains cautious about rapidly increasing adoption. “We don’t want everybody to run it…

Zak Folkman, co-founder of World Liberty Financial ($WLFI), has publicly addressed the escalating legal dispute with Tron (TRX) founder Justin Sun, announcing plans for a countersuit. Speaking at the Consensus 2026 conference, Folkman refuted Sun’s allegations regarding token freezes and governance exclusion, characterizing the claims as factually incorrect. Background of the Legal Dispute The conflict centers on a $75 million loan from Dolomite, a lending platform within the $WLFI ecosystem. Folkman explained that $WLFI was Dolomite’s largest liquidity provider and had taken a small loan against its collateral to increase protocol utilization. This move, he argued, was a standard practice…

Non-dollar stablecoins like A7A5 and $EURC are challenging Greenback-tied digital currencies like $USDT and $USDC in the digital-asset market in Russia and beyond. The finding comes from a new study, which also examines how residents of Russia and other Russian-speaking countries are using cryptocurrencies. Sanctioned Russian crypto viewed as main alternative to Tether The ruble-pegged A7A5 has become a popular choice for many Russians who prefer to use it instead of dollar-backed stablecoins. Some 53.7% of the 1,000 respondents in the survey have named it as the primary alternative to Tether’s $USDT and Circle’s USD Coin ($USDC). The research was…

Bitcoin Volatility Falls as Asset Matures, Charles Schwab Report Finds A new report from Charles Schwab suggests bitcoin is shedding one of its defining traits: extreme volatility. That might be good or bad news. According to the firm’s analysis, bitcoin’s price swings have declined sharply in recent years, with the asset now exhibiting less volatility than some of the largest U.S. technology stocks. The report found $BTC’s historical volatility (HV) dropped to 42% in 2025 — roughly half of what it recorded in 2021 — marking a significant shift as the cryptocurrency matures into a widely traded financial asset. Schwab’s…

Artificial intelligence is pushing financial systems toward a model where machines execute transactions at scale, raising new challenges around control, oversight and infrastructure, said Microsoft and Chainalysis executives. Bill Borden, corporate vice president of worldwide financial services at Microsoft, said Tuesday that legacy systems will face increasing pressure as transaction demands grow more complex. The tipping point comes when “latency, scale, complexity are starting to impact your ability to compete,” forcing firms to rethink how their systems are built, he said at an event hosted by Alchemy in New York City. While automation has long been part of finance, Borden…

As the process for cryptocurrency ETF applications accelerates, Grayscale and VanEck have updated their spot $BNB ETF applications. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart revealed that Grayscale has filed a second amended S-1 application for its spot $BNB ETF. Seyffart stated that this update was most likely made in response to feedback from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and could indicate that the application is nearing the launch process. On the same day, VanEck also submitted its fifth updated prospectus for the $BNB ETF to the SEC. Meanwhile, Canary Capital filed its first amended application for a stake-based TRX/Tron…

The Senate Banking Committee meets in executive session later today, May 14, to consider the CLARITY Act, a bill that already cleared the House 294-134 in July 2025 and needs at least 7 Democratic votes to advance in the full Senate. Hashdex CIO Samir Kerbage reads the current crypto price action as confirmation that the market is pricing the odds of a committee vote, leaving the capital flow scenario of a signed bill entirely out of current valuations. Kerbage told CryptoSlate: “If the CLARITY Act is signed into law this won’t just be a compliance milestone, it will be a…

In brief Intercontinental Exchange and CME Group are reportedly urging the CFTC to address market integrity risks associated with Hyperliquid. The Hyperliquid Policy Center publicly dismissed the traditional exchanges’ concerns as baseless, pointing to the public nature of the platform’s transactions. Amid energy market volatility, Hyperliquid has generated $21.51 billion in notional Brent crude perpetual futures trading volume. The Hyperliquid Policy Center pushed back on Friday against concerns that have reportedly been raised by incumbent exchanges on Wall Street, arguing that the decentralized exchange, or DEX, is designed in a way that’s “hostile” to insider trading and price manipulation. “Hyperliquid’s…

Bitcoin ($BTC) mining and artificial intelligence (AI) computing both consume massive amounts of electricity, sparking an intense debate over their environmental impact in 2026. Bitcoin, the pioneering cryptocurrency, secures its decentralized network through energy-intensive proof-of-work mining that consumes 150-170 TWh yearly and emits 65-75 million tonnes (Mt) of CO₂e. Meanwhile, AI computing powers everything from large language models like GPT, image generators, and recommendation systems in massive GPU data centers, already producing 33-80 million tonnes of CO₂e. Both technologies consume vast amounts of electricity amid the global net-zero push, forcing urgent questions about which leaves the larger carbon footprint. $BTC…