Author: NBTC

Hong Kong, one of the world’s major financial hubs, has long been committed to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology — but it faces a competitive challenge from the crypto-friendly UAE. This was a fact acknowledged by panelists Joseph Chan, under secretary for financial services and the treasury in Hong Kong, and Johnny Ng, founder of web3 investment firm Goldford Group, who spoke at Consensus Hong Kong. “The UAE is really aggressive,” said NG, who served as a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) since 2018. He said places such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi…

Boerse Stuttgart Group, operator of one of Europe’s largest stock exchanges, said it will merge its cryptocurrency business with Frankfurt-based digital asset trading firm Tradias in a strategic move to expand its presence in institutional crypto markets. The transaction will consolidate about 300 employees under a joint management team from both companies, according to a Friday announcement. The combined unit aims to cover multiple digital asset services, including brokerage, trading, custody, staking and tokenized assets. It will serve banks, brokers and other financial institutions across Europe, providing fully regulated crypto infrastructure, the announcement said. Financial terms of the deal were…

Snowball Money has declared a strategic alliance with REI Network (GXChainGlobal) to incorporate identity infrastructure into the zero-fee blockchain ecosystem at REI. The partnership is meant to bring human-readable identities, on-chain reputation that is portable, and streamlined wallet interactions to the growing range of decentralized finance and games applications of REI. Partnership Announcement 🤝We’re partnering with @GXChainGlobal (REI Network) to bring identity infrastructure to the zero-fee blockchain.What this partnership enables:→ Human-readable identities for zero-fee transactions – REI users can claim @names for seamless, gas-free… pic.twitter.com/MYGMNLfNHn — Snowball Money (@snowball_money) February 12, 2026 This announcement points to a common mission of…

Arkham Intelligence released a new research report which disclosed the parties that possessed the biggest Ethereum balances in the world. The data concentrates on non-staking holdings of $ETH and provides a better perspective of liquid and custodial supply, as opposed to locked protocol funds. The list is dominated by centralized exchanges and institutional players according to the report. They jointly hold millions of $ETH which is tens of billions of funds at existing rates. This release emphasizes the fact that Ethereum is still being owned by large financial institutions. 🚨JUST IN: WORLD’S LARGEST $ETH HOLDERS REVEALEDAccording to a new research…

In 2025, digital asset treasuries (DATs) broke into the mainstream, as publicly traded companies increasingly began treating cryptocurrencies as core balance-sheet assets, rather than just speculative or experimental. The model, originally adopted by Michael Saylor’s Strategy in 2020, involves publicly traded companies, usually with non-crypto-related businesses, accumulating and holding cryptocurrency as a primary corporate treasury asset. This gives holders of the DAT company’s stock at least indirect exposure to cryptocurrency prices, without directly holding any crypto. Strategy remains the largest player in the DAT sector in terms of the dollar value of its crypto holdings, with over $62 billion in…

Paxful Holdings, which pleaded guilty last year to accusations from U.S. authorities that it had fostered illegal prostitution, violated money-laundering laws and knowingly handled criminal proceeds, was sentenced to pay a $4 million penalty, much reduced because of the business’ current ability to pay. The peer-to-peer bitcoin BTC$67,188.84 marketplace that had been popular in Africa shut down in 2023, but Paxful had processed as much as $3 billion in crypto trades from 2017 to 2019, according to U.S. authorities, including transactions for customer Backpage, an advertising platform for illicit sex work. “This sentence sends a clear message: companies that turn…

SBI Holdings moves to acquire Singapore crypto exchange Coinhako in a major Asia expansion play. The deal positions SBI deeper into regulated crypto markets and digital asset infrastructure. Tokenized assets and stablecoins sit at the center of this strategic push. SBI Holdings, one of Japan’s largest financial groups, has announced plans to acquire a majority stake in Coinhako, a leading cryptocurrency platform in Singapore. The deal signals SBI’s aggressive push to expand its digital asset footprint across Asia. SBI will carry out the acquisition through its subsidiary SBI Ventures Asset Pte. Ltd. The deal involves both capital injection and buying…

In a move that underscores its push into data-driven logistics, FedEx hedera collaboration is being framed as a strategic step toward smarter, more transparent global trade. FedEx joins Hedera Council to shape digital supply chain standards Hedera technology and enterprise-grade trust layer FedEx role and objectives within Hedera Council Executive statements on digital supply chain transformation Governance, node operations and council structure About FedEx Corp. About Hedera Council FedEx joins Hedera Council to shape digital supply chain standards On February 13, 2026, FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) announced it is joining the Hedera Council, the governance body behind the public Hedera…

The European Union is finalizing a new package of sanctions aimed at closing loopholes that officials say have allowed Russia to use cryptocurrency to circumvent existing restrictions. The EU is seeking to “ban all cryptocurrency transactions with Russia” as part of the upcoming 20th sanctions package, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. Unlike previous efforts targeting Russia-linked entities spun out of already sanctioned platforms, the newly proposed measures are broader and are designed to close Russia’s crypto loophole entirely. “Any further listing of individual crypto asset service providers […] is therefore likely to result in the set-up of new ones to circumvent…

The Web3-native business modular payments platform, Pulsar Money, has greatly enhanced its content verification workflow by integrating Teneo Protocol. According to the company, the processing speed of one of the key functions of the company increased by 50 times, which is a large improvement in its on-chain payment infrastructure. API limits were slowing Pulsar Money down.Burst workloads. Manual checks. Bottlenecks.After integrating Teneo Protocol, their content verification workflow ran 50× faster.Read how they did it 👉 https://t.co/E6YMlwycYG pic.twitter.com/byYvaTLzP9 — Teneo Protocol (@teneo_protocol) February 12, 2026 The upgrade will focus on the automation of the process of verifying posts posted by users…