Author: NBTC

Recent US regulatory action seeking to restrict prediction markets hasn’t slowed activity in the first weeks of 2026, with trading volumes hitting a record $701.7 million on Monday. Prediction market Kalshi accounted for two-thirds of total trading volume at $465.9 million, while competitors Polymarket and Opinion tallied $100 million worth of trades, Dune Analytics data from Gate Research shows. The $701.7 million tally beat the previous record of $666.6 million set the day before, with Kalshi leading trading volumes by a similar margin. Daily trading volume on prediction markets since September 2024. Source: Dune Analytics Prediction markets have become one…

Bitcoin miners entered early 2026 in a familiar but increasingly unforgiving setup: network hashrate is slipping from late-2025 highs, difficulty is adjusting on a delay, and power costs remain the hard constraint that decides which fleets stay online and which go dark. The result is a market that can look resilient on the surface, especially when Bitcoin bounces, but remains fragile at the margin, where a single difficulty uptick or a regional power spike can turn “operating” into “curtailing” quickly. Hashrate is cooling after a late-2025 high Bitcoin’s network hashrate has cooled from its late-2025 peak pace and has not…

Key Takeaways Disney will license characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars to OpenAI’s Sora platform. Disney is making a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI and will use its AI tools for new digital experiences. The Walt Disney Company has reached a multiyear agreement with OpenAI to become the first major content licensing partner for Sora, the generative video platform that creates short-form user-prompted clips. The deal allows Sora and ChatGPT Images to generate fan-inspired content using more than 200 animated, masked, and creature characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars, along with props, vehicles, and iconic…

U.S. Senate Democrats have returned to negotiations over the best approach to a crypto market structure bill, hosting a Friday call with representatives of the crypto industry in which the lawmakers were strongly engaged over the next steps, according to people familiar with the talks. After this week’s high-profile legislative setback that saw a sudden delay in the Senate’s first voting on the legislation, the Democrats sought to demonstrate they’re still ready to move a bill. And participants came away from the noon call with a sense that the Senate Agriculture Committee is still trying to make its end-of-month target…

Vietnam is preparing to launch formal testing for digital asset trading under a controlled regulatory framework by mid-January 2026. This initiative is designed to manage risks and integrate digital assets into the broader economy. According to a report by Vietnam Investment Review, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh confirmed that pilot digital asset exchanges will be licensed before January 15, 2026. The government aims to ensure a secure and transparent environment for the digital asset market to grow. Regulations for Pilot Digital Asset Exchanges in Vietnam The Vietnamese government has set strict requirements for companies seeking to participate in the pilot…

A crypto whale has used a five-year-old leveraged decentralized finance strategy to buy tokenized gold, even as bullion prices show signs of cooling after recent record highs. According to blockchain data cited by Lookonchain on social platform X, the large wallet accumulated tokenized gold worth about $38.4 million over the past 20 days using looped borrowing on Aave, one of the largest lending protocols in decentralized finance. Whale 0x8522 purchased 8,337 units of tokenized gold while borrowing heavily against stablecoin collateral, analytics firm Lookonchain discovered. Whale takes up leveraged gold exposure through looped borrowing According to transactional data from deBank,…

Crypto investment firm Blockstream Capital Partners (BCP) plans to acquire Corbiere Capital Management, a Jersey-based equities hedge fund founded by Rodrigo Rodriguez in 2023, the company said in a press release Thursday. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. BCP said the Corbiere deal will add equity and event-driven strategies to its existing bitcoin-linked products, building out a multi-strategy platform targeted at institutional investors The firm said the combination is designed to enable more diversified portfolios that combine traditional securities with bitcoin-referenced exposures. Rodriguez will become chief investment officer of Blockstream Capital Management, a new asset management entity within…

The US crypto industry believed it stood on the precipice of securing the regulatory legitimacy it has pursued for a decade, but the political ground has suddenly shifted beneath it. On Jan. 14, Sen. Tim Scott, the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, postponed a vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. This delay effectively halted Washington’s most advanced attempt yet to establish comprehensive “rules of the road” for the $3 trillion digital asset market. While Chair Scott characterized the postponement as a tactical pause to keep stakeholders “at the table working in good faith,” the sudden brake-pumping reveals…

Alchemy Pay, the Singapore-founded fiat-crypto payment gateway, has added Dash’s native token $DASH to its global fiat on-ramp, the companies announced today. The integration means users will now be able to buy $DASH directly with local fiat payment methods supported by Alchemy Pay’s network, lowering a key barrier for people who want to use Dash as everyday digital cash. The move leverages Alchemy Pay’s wide-reaching payment infrastructure: the company’s on-ramp supports purchases across 173 countries and connects with more than 300 payment channels and 50+ fiat currencies, from global card networks like Visa and Mastercard to Apple Pay, Google Pay,…

Vault curators are reaching peak levels of activity, becoming a key growth driver for DeFi. Curators have been growing their footprint, expanding the value locked in the Morpho protocol. Vault curators are becoming a notable element in the growth of DeFi. The rise of top curators boosted the value locked on Morpho, leading to a greater expansion of DeFi lending. As Cryptopolitan reported earlier, risk curators or vault curators took off in 2025, but faced stress tests for some of the vaults. Vault curators had to be careful about resource utilization and the risks of their high-yield vaults. Steakhouse Finance…