Author: NBTC

Key Takeaways Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, has launched the country’s first corporate loan backed by crypto mined by AO Intelion Data. Deputy CEO Anatoly Popov said the pilot helps test digital-asset collateral mechanisms as Russia shapes crypto regulation. Sberbank ran a pilot loan with mining company AO Intelion Data that used self-mined crypto as collateral, secured through Sber’s internal custody platform and Rutoken hardware, according to a recent announcement. Anatoly Popov, Deputy CEO of Russia’s largest lender, said the test supports cooperation with the central bank on developing crypto rules and infrastructure. He noted that digital-collateral products could be useful…

Ethereum developers earlier this month agreed on the name and rough timing of the network’s second major upgrade scheduled for 2026, settling on “Hegota” as the next milestone in the blockchain’s development roadmap. Hegota will follow “Glamsterdam,” Ethereum’s next major upgrade, which is currently expected to roll out in the first half of 2026. That sequencing places Hegota tentatively in the second half of the year, continuing a faster cadence of protocol upgrades than Ethereum has historically maintained. The decision reflects a relatively new approach to Ethereum development, with core contributors aiming to ship network changes more frequently rather than…

The Federal borrowing estimate for the U.S. Treasury Department for the final three months of the year was reduced to $569 billion, thanks to a stronger cash position and improved revenue collection. The three months, which ended on Wednesday, saw $21 billion in short-term borrowing, down from the $590 billion forecast issued in July, indicating a decrease in short-term borrowing. Officials attribute most of the changes to more cash than expected at the beginning of the quarter. The data available suggests that in early October, the Treasury had approximately $891 in cash, which was above the $850 in summer gross…

Cryptocurrency taxation is a matter of political decisions, hence an ever-changing one. And while the common feeling may be that the list of crypto tax havens is shrinking, economic sense, although not that common anymore, still prevails in some European and other capitals. Ahead of the New Year’s Eve, when the time is ripe for the right decisions, coin owners across the Old Continent brace for what often seems as inevitable – taxation, especially given the growing enforcement of the EU’s new rules for the market that affect this area, too. The next tax filing season is set to begin…

USD1 increased its supply by over 45M tokens, expanding to 2.79B tokens. The stablecoin has joined the Binance ecosystem with a 20% yield product. USD1 expanded its supply in the past day, just after adding another yield product in the Binance ecosystem. The new supply entered the market just as USD1 was added to the Binance Booster program. The program is limited to 50,000 USD1 deposits and offers a 20% annualized yield. The yield is part of Binance’s usual Earn program, with a special addition of USD1. The stablecoin, minted by World Liberty Fi, will have a limited period for…

One of the biggest coordinated inflows of the year was recently seen in Ethereum staking, and it was not from anonymous wallets engaging in gaming. As the market chops sideways, Bitmine, Tom Lee’s Fundstrat-backed company, is aggressively pushing ETH into staking, thereby locking up supply at scale. A lot staked Bitmine has staked 342,560 ETH over the last two days or about $1 billion at current prices, according to on-chain data. Additionally, these deposits were not arbitrary. Batch deposit contracts were used to route the transfers, which were divided into clean repeated tranches of 28,320 ETH each. It is not…

South Korea’s financial landscape is showing a major shift. The nation’s main stock index, KOSPI, has hit an all-time high. While trading activity on local crypto exchanges has crashed to record lows. The trend, shared by CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju, reveals a growing preference among investors for traditional markets over digital assets. KOSPI Surges to All-Time High According to data posted by Ki Young Ju, the KOSPI index surged past 4,200 points on November 3. This marks its strongest performance in history. The index has been on a steady climb throughout the year. Which reflects renewed optimism in South…

Congress is poised to make a historic move in US crypto regulation as Senator Cynthia Lummis’s bipartisan market structure bill approaches a January 2026 markup. After a decade of uncertainty, the legislation promises to bring clarity for innovators, protect consumers, and ensure that digital asset growth happens on American soil rather than overseas. Regulatory Momentum Grows as Lummis Steps Back Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, a longtime champion of digital asset clarity, announced on December 19 that she will not seek reelection. Despite stepping back, she reaffirmed her commitment to advancing her bipartisan bill. “Our digital asset market structure bill provides…

Decentralized perpetuals exchange and Layer 1 blockchain Hyperliquid has unveiled two new features in pre-alpha: portfolio margin and its BLP Earn vaults. Founder Jeff Yan announced the change in the Hyperliquid Discord, and says the “initial rollout has intentionally low caps as safeguards, with HYPE as the only collateral asset and USDC as the only borrowable asset. USDH will be added as borrowable, and BTC will be added as collateral in a future upgrade.” Portfolio margin unifies users’ spot and perpetuals trading accounts for greater capital efficiency. The pre-alpha phase is gated to accounts with more than $5 million in…

Ethereum’s 2026 roadmap centers on two tracks: expanding rollup data capacity through blobs while pushing base-layer execution higher through gas limit changes. Those gas limit changes depend on validators moving from re-executing blocks to verifying ZK execution proofs. The first track is already anchored by Fusaka, which shipped Dec. 3, 2025. Fusaka It sets up PeerDAS plus blob parameter only (BPO) changes that can raise blob throughput in measured steps, according to ethereum.org. The second track is less mechanized because it relies on draft EIPs, client implementation, and validator operations that have to stay within decentralization constraints, including bandwidth, block…