Author: NBTC

The ongoing conflict between the US and Iran continues to drive up oil prices and market tensions, while the increased risk of inflation is negatively impacting Bitcoin and altcoins. At this point, cryptocurrency markets started the last day of the week with a decline, with Bitcoin falling below $68,000 and Ethereum approaching the $2,000 mark. While other major altcoins also saw declines reaching 5%, $XRP fell 60% from its peak of $3.6, dropping to around $1.3. As the $XRP price experiences a sharp decline, institutional investors are planning to increase their allocations. According to a survey conducted by Ernst &…

Google recently released new research on quantum risk for blockchains. In its release, Google warned that quantum advances could break crypto security sooner than expected, highlighting “appropriate urgency.” The various quantum risk profiles for popular blockchains were divided into four categories. One category consists of protocols that make long-term exposure of quantum-vulnerable public keys inevitable. It includes blockchains with persistent accounts such as Ethereum, Solana and $XRP Ledger. These utilize an account model and either use public keys directly as account addresses or expose them in the first transaction. The $XRP Ledger is noted, in contrast to other blockchains, to…

Altura, a decentralized finance protocol founded by former Fidelity and PwC staff is launching an onchain gold arbitrage strategy aimed at retail investors, targeting 20% annualized returns, according to a Thursday release shared with Cointelegraph. According to Altura, the product pools user deposits into a vault that recycles capital through short-duration physical gold trades. Unlike platforms like Robinhood or Revolut that offer passive gold price exposure, Altura claims to be tokenizing the underlying arbitrage process itself. The company says it has raised $4 million in funding and has already facilitated the movement of about 185 kilograms of gold, representing roughly…

Bitcoin is moving deeper into US household finance as homebuyers squeezed by high borrowing costs and limited supply look for new ways to fund a down payment without selling their digital assets. On March 26, Better Home & Finance and Coinbase launched a structure that lets eligible borrowers pledge Bitcoin or USD Coin ($USDC) stablecoin to secure a separate loan for a down payment while still taking out a standard conforming mortgage on the home. The arrangement brings crypto into one of the most closely watched parts of the U.S. credit system at a time when affordability pressures are already…

MARA Holdings (MARA) reportedly cut approximately 15% of its workforce and sold over 15,000 Bitcoin ($BTC) for $1.1 billion to retire convertible debt, as the company pivots from Bitcoin mining toward AI and energy infrastructure. CEO Fred Thiel confirmed the layoffs in an internal memo, describing the cuts as “a strategic one” rather than purely financial, citing the company’s new direction following its partnerships with Starwood Digital Ventures and Exaion. MARA Cuts 15% of Staff and Sells $1.1B in Bitcoin to Fund AI Pivot The layoffs hit multiple departments in waves across early April, according to sources familiar with the…

Aztec Network has launched its Alpha Network, delivering what it says is the first Ethereum Layer 2 with a complete execution environment for private smart contracts. The upgrade, which followed a unanimous community governance vote, builds on the Ignition Chain that went live in November 2025 as the coordination layer for decentralized sequencing and block production. $AZTEC is up 5% in the past 24 hours, trading at a roughly $200 million valuation, according to Coingecko. $AZTEC Chart Aztec’s approach integrates privacy across three layers: data, identity, and compute. Private data enables confidential transactions, payments, and RWA transfers. Private identity allows…

Traditional finance has credit ratings. DeFi has mostly had vibes, dashboards, and overconfident threads. RedStone and Credora are trying to change that — starting with an A+ institutional risk rating for Lido’s stETH. — For years, one of DeFi’s biggest bottlenecks with institutions hasn’t been yield. It’s been trust. Traditional allocators know how to work with standardized risk frameworks, probability-of-default models, and credit ratings. They do not know what to do with a market where risk is still often described through TVL screenshots, token narratives, and Discord sentiment. That’s what makes RedStone’s latest move more significant than a typical protocol…

A small group of collections has moved beyond crypto-native speculation and into consumer-facing brands. Pudgy Penguins has continued to present itself as a broader IP business, with recent CoinDesk Research describing more than $13 million in retail sales and over 2 million units sold, while Doodles now frames itself less as a pure collection and more as a creative platform built around content, AI, and brand expansion. Indeed, the $NFT sector has become more selective, with utility-led and gaming-linked activity holding up better than the broad speculative frenzy that defined the earlier cycle. While a handful of projects are trying…

The European Central Bank (ECB) argues that the digital euro is not a threat to banks but a strategic lifeline against big tech payment firms and stablecoins. Executive Board member Piero Cipollone and Supervisory Board Vice-Chair Frank Elderson published a joint blog post laying out the case. They framed the digital euro as a competitive tool that European banks urgently need. European Banks Are Losing Ground The two ECB officials painted a stark picture of European banking’s dependence on foreign payment infrastructure. According to the blog post, non-European card schemes currently process two-thirds of all euro area card transactions. That…

Plume, a blockchain focused on real-world assets (RWAs), has launched what it calls the first payroll pilot using a tokenized money market fund, enabling employees to convert part of their salaries into yield-bearing fund shares without interacting with crypto exchanges or moving funds onchain manually. The pilot pairs Plume’s onchain infrastructure with Toku’s stablecoin payroll platform and WisdomTree’s tokenized money market fund, WTGXX. Participating Plume employees can make a one-time election to route a portion of their pay into fund shares, which are purchased via WisdomTree Connect and held in verified wallets linked to WisdomTree Prime accounts. WTGXX has emerged…