Author: NBTC

Shinhan Investment & Securities, a major South Korean financial institution, is exploring an expansion into Hong Kong’s digital asset market. The company’s Hong Kong subsidiary has entered preliminary discussions with the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) to broaden its business scope to include tokenized assets, specifically security token offerings (STOs) and real-world assets (RWAs), while retaining its existing license for traditional securities. Focus on Professional Investors According to a report by The Herald Business, a senior official at Shinhan Investment & Securities confirmed that the firm is currently in the early stages of dialogue with Hong Kong’s financial authorities. The…

The Solana network is poised for a significant performance leap as Anza, a core development team, officially recommended on May 18 that mainnet validators upgrade to the Agave 4.0 client. The recommendation, shared via Anza’s official X account, outlines a series of enhancements designed to dramatically improve transaction processing speed, network efficiency, and scalability. Key Upgrades in Agave 4.0: XDP, QUIC, and Replay Optimization At the heart of the Agave 4.0 release is the integration of XDP (eXpress Data Path) for the Turbine block propagation protocol. According to Anza, tests conducted with large mainnet validators showed a dramatic reduction in…

Law and Ledger is a news segment focusing on crypto legal news, brought to you by Kelman Law – A law firm focused on digital asset commerce. This Week in Crypto Law The opinion editorial below was written by Alex Forehand and Michael Handelsman for Kelman.Law. We’re back after a week off. This week in crypto law may ultimately be remembered as a turning point in how governments view digital assets. Policymakers are no longer debating whether crypto belongs within the financial system—they are now actively determining how it will be regulated, integrated, and controlled. From major U.S. legislation and…

Cryptocurrency exchange OKX has introduced Exchange OS, a major protocol upgrade on its Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain, X Layer. The new infrastructure allows developers, institutions, and ecosystem participants to build and deploy three types of markets directly on the network: spot trading, perpetual futures, and prediction markets. Exchange OS: A New Infrastructure for Market Creation Exchange OS is designed to leverage OKX’s institutional-grade trading infrastructure, offering a modular framework for market creation. The protocol provides the underlying technology for order matching, risk management, and settlement, which third parties can integrate to launch their own trading venues on X Layer. This…

Garrett Jin, the founder of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange BitForex, has significantly increased his leveraged Bitcoin long position, according to on-chain data from Onchain Lens. Jin’s position now stands at 1,268 BTC, valued at approximately $94 million, with 5x leverage. The development raises fresh questions about the financial activities of an individual linked to one of the industry’s most notable fraud cases. A High-Stakes Bet on Bitcoin Onchain Lens reported that Jin entered the position at an average price of $76,117 per Bitcoin. His liquidation price is set at $51,580, meaning a drop of roughly 32% from current levels could…

Google and Blackstone are creating a standalone AI cloud company that will sell Google’s proprietary TPU chips to outside customers, with Blackstone contributing $5 billion in equity for a majority stake. Including leverage, the total investment reaches $25 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. Benjamin Treynor Sloss, a longtime Google executive, will run the unnamed US venture as CEO. The company targets 500 megawatts of computing capacity by 2027 with plans to scale beyond that. Blackstone and Google have already identified data centers that will fold into the venture, some still under construction. Customers will be able to access TPUs…

Pump.fun, a Solana-based token launchpad, has transferred 91,708 $SOL—worth approximately $7.76 million—to the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, according to on-chain analytics firm Onchain Lens. This transaction is part of a broader movement of funds today, bringing the total Solana sent to Kraken by the platform to 174,400 $SOL, valued at roughly $14.76 million. Details of the Transfer The latest transfer was detected by blockchain monitoring tools and reported by Onchain Lens via social media. The funds were moved from a wallet associated with Pump.fun to a Kraken deposit address. While the exact purpose of the transfer has not been officially disclosed…

The Federal Reserve published the latest version of its proposal to create a “skinny” master account, updating the proposal first published last December. In the same week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the greater integration of digital assets with existing payment networks. You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. Click here to sign up for future editions. The narrative U.S. President Donald Trump signed two executive orders this past Tuesday. One directed the broader government to update existing regulations to better integrate crypto into payment systems, while the…

Decentralized platform Hyperliquid is now competing with established betting platforms such as Polymarket, but with a differentiated mechanism for resolving bets. The leading decentralized exchange has expanded its HIP-4 outcome contracts beyond crypto price milestones into real-world events. This native prediction-market infrastructure allows users to trade macro contracts, such as inflation data and interest-rate decisions, directly alongside their standard crypto perpetuals out of a single account. Outcome markets mark a notable expansion for the decentralized derivatives venue, which built its business around crypto perpetual futures and initially tested the product using price‑outcome contracts settled against its own market data. Hyperliquid…

Bitcoin price started a fresh decline below the $75,500 zone. $BTC is consolidating and might struggle to stay above the $74,000 support. Bitcoin failed to stay above $76,000 and extended losses. The price is trading below $75,500 and the 100 hourly simple moving average. There is a bearish trend line forming with resistance at $74,850 on the hourly chart of the $BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken). The pair might extend losses if it stays below the $75,000 and $75,500 levels. Bitcoin Price Dips Further Bitcoin price failed to stay above the $76,200 support zone. $BTC remained in a bearish…