Author: NBTC

The European Commission has presented its 20th round of sanctions against Russia, which will target cryptocurrency platforms and digital assets. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the new restrictions on February 6, 2026. The measures extend beyond traditional sectors such as energy and trade to include the digital economy. What Will Be Banned in the Crypto Sector? The new package is directed against crypto platforms, traders, and companies that, according to European regulators, are helping Russia circumvent existing sanctions. The aim is to close loopholes in digital payments and restrict cryptocurrency-based financing. While the exact wording of the…

Danish lender Danske Bank is offering its customers the opportunity to invest in Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded products, but is refusing to recommend cryptocurrencies as an asset class. According to a press release, users of its Danske eBanking and Danske Mobile Banking services will be able to gain exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum via corresponding ETPs, without having to hold the cryptocurrencies themselves. The bank, Denmark’s largest, says that it’s rolling out these options in response to growing customer demand, and that it’s targeting customers who use its trading platform without receiving advice on investments. “As cryptocurrencies have become a…

Jimmy Liao, a core developer and founder of R3E Network, has revealed he is working on a Neo Solidity Compiler, a tool that compiles Solidity 0.8.x smart contracts to Neo N3 bytecode. The project allows developers to write contracts in Solidity and deploy them to the Neo N3 blockchain. What is Neo Solidity? The Neo Solidity Compiler translates Solidity smart contracts into Neo N3-compatible bytecode and manifest files. The compiler is written primarily in Rust and includes testing infrastructure for both basic and advanced Solidity features. The project documentation states its goal is to enable Ethereum developers to build on…

Ethereum ($ETH) was among the altcoins most affected by the major crash last week. While the $ETH price fell below $2,000, data shows that on-chain network activity is increasing. According to analysts, this situation raises the possibility that the market may have entered a “capacity” phase. In their latest report, CryptoQuant analysts noted an increase in network activity while the Ethereum price was falling. This increase raised the possibility of another phase of selling pressure. “As the Ethereum price dropped from around $3,000 to approximately $2,000, ERC-20 token transfers increased sharply. The 14-day moving average (SMA-14) of total token transfers…

BlackRock’s (NYSE: BLK) iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF (IGM) has been the exemplar of the technology sector’s ability to outperform the U.S. stock market for more than two decades. Specifically, the exchange-traded fund (ETF) has been among the most successful index-tracking products on the market and has managed to beat its peers every single year since 2001. For example, IGM rose 22.50% in the last 12 months and 119.90% in the last five years. Within the same timeframes, the benchmark index rallied 14.78% and 79.32%, with the undeniable strength of the U.S. market only serving to highlight the success of…

CoinDesk is hosting its second annual Consensus Hong Kong conference, and as always, we’ll have a number of policy-focused sessions. Are you in town? Find me on stage or around the show floor and say hi! 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 CoinDesk’s annual Consensus Hong Kong conference will kick off this Wednesday with a speech from Hong Kong Chief Executive John KC Lee. Why it matters Hong Kong is playing an interesting role in the intersection of financial services…

South Korea’s Bithum admitted Wednesday that severe flaws left the trading platform’s internal system wide open to potential sabotage and that it failed to prevent the mistaken transfer of $40 billion in bitcoin to customers, according to Reuters. The blunder, which triggered the price of bitcoin to plunge by 17% on Bithumb, according to Reuters, consisted of the country’s second-largest crypto trading platform accidentally giving away 620,000 bitcoins to customers instead of just 620,000 won (roughly $428). The Financial Supervisory Service said Sunday it will start investigations into “high-risk” practices that undermine market order, including large-scale price manipulation by so-called…

R3E Network has published a new version of NeoRust, a substantial maintenance release focused on code quality, security, and developer experience. First launched in 2021, NeoRust is a Rust SDK that helps developers build on Neo N3 using a high-level API with unified error handling. The project received GrantShares funding in 2023 and includes tooling for cryptography, wallet management (BIP-39/44 HD wallets, multi-sig, and hardware wallet support), and RPC-based node interaction. It also supports smart contract deployment and invocation, NEP-17 token operations, WebSocket-based event monitoring, transaction simulation for fee estimation, and network configuration for MainNet, TestNet, and custom networks. Key…

A new wallet has come into the market. First, it created address 0x15a4. Thereafter, it placed a deposit of $5 million of $USDC in Hyperliquid. It immediately went short leveraged 20 times. The position targets 30,000 $ETH. The notional exposure is a sum of $60.76 million. This was not a cautious entry. It was decisive, fast and highly leveraged. Consequently, on-chain analysts were immediately attracted by the trade. A gambler created a new wallet 0x15a4, deposited 5M $USDC into #Hyperliquid, and opened a 20× short on 30,000 $ETH($60.76M).Liquidation price: $2,143.38https://t.co/Z2oHDELAHi pic.twitter.com/A5dbMsX7TF — Lookonchain (@lookonchain) February 9, 2026 The entry price…

Despite the face-value strength of the U.S. economy, exemplified by the S&P 500’s 16% rally in 2025, the previous year has seen a string of warning signs. One of the most pointed metrics of brewing trouble has been the number of large corporate bankruptcies, which has reached its highest level since 2010. Specifically, 717 major American companies have filed for bankruptcy in 2025 – a 4.37% increase from 687 in 2024. Furthermore, the number is 12.21% greater than during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and is the highest figure recorded since the 828 corporate failures recorded in 2010. Indeed, the…