Author: NBTC

Rakuten Wallet added $XRP access to one of Japan’s largest consumer payment networks, a rollout highlighted by a Ripple manager on April 30. Users can convert Rakuten Points into $XRP, trade in-app, and charge Rakuten Cash through Rakuten Wallet for spending via Rakuten Pay across more than 5 million merchant locations. Key Takeaways: Rakuten Wallet enabled $XRP conversions, trading, and Rakuten Cash funding for users in Japan. Scale comes from 44 million Rakuten Pay users and 5M+ merchants. Integration expands $XRP utility across rewards, wallets, and everyday purchases. Rakuten Wallet Links $XRP to Loyalty Points and Payments Rakuten Wallet has…

Hut 8 (HUT), a bitcoin miner turned energy and AI compute company, has refinanced its bitcoin-backed credit facility, replacing its existing Coinbase Credit arrangement with a new $200 million facility with FalconX. With the new deal, Hut 8 cut its fixed interest rate to 7% from 9%, a 200-basis-point improvement, according to a press release. The move is part of the firm’s focus on lowering its cost of debt on bitcoin-backed credit and broader cost of capital, the company said. The deal also frees up approximately 3,300 bitcoin that were previously pledged as collateral, worth roughly $260 million as of…

Bitcoin crossed $100 for the first time on April 1, 2013, marking one of the earliest turning points in its market history. At the time, the asset was still traded as a niche experiment, but rising trading activity and broader public attention began to change that view. Thirteen years later, Bitcoin trades far above that early milestone, yet the pace of growth now looks very different from prior cycles. Recent price action near $70,000, along with on-chain data, shows a market that has become larger, slower, and more tied to institutional flows. How Did Bitcoin Move From $100 to a…

Payward has completed its acquisition of Bitnomial, giving Kraken a regulated pathway to launch crypto derivatives in the U.S. According to a company statement released Friday, the deal hands Payward control of a full set of Commodity Futures Trading Commission licenses, including a Futures Commission Merchant, a Designated Contract Market, and a Derivatives Clearing Organization, allowing it to operate trading, clearing, and brokerage services under one framework. Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, said the rollout will begin with spot margin trading on Kraken, with perpetual contracts and options scheduled to follow, adding that “that stack is what makes…

A newly introduced bill in the Michigan legislature threatens to pump the brakes on the expansion of the cryptocurrency mining industry within the state. House Bill 5882 aims to grant local municipalities explicit authority to impose moratoriums on the construction of both cryptocurrency mining facilities and large-scale data centers. The legislation was introduced last month by State Representatives Miller, Dievendorf, and Paiz, and has since been referred to the Committee on Government Operations. Cracking down on mining The bill aims to regulate energy-intensive computing facilities by giving local units of government more power over zoning ordinance amendments and construction approvals.…

The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) has announced 1.5 billion satoshis in new grants through its Bitcoin Development Fund (BDF), expanding support for projects focused on Bitcoin infrastructure, privacy, and education. The funding round targets open-source developers, researchers, and educational initiatives working across Bitcoin’s ecosystem, with an emphasis on tools that strengthen financial privacy and censorship resistance. According to HRF, the grants are intended to advance Bitcoin-based technologies that can support dissidents and human rights defenders operating under authoritarian regimes. The organization estimates its efforts ultimately serve billions of people living under restrictive political systems, where access to open financial networks…

Since the onset of the Iran war, Dubai real estate has crashed worse than bitcoin ($BTC). The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) Real Estate Index closed trading at 13,353 on Monday, down 18.1% from 16,306 on February 27, the most recent trading session before Operation Epic Fury’s opening airstrikes at 1:15am New York time on February 28. In contrast, $BTC was trading at $65,492 when the first bombs fell on Iran. It briefly dipped to $63,000, but had rallied to $69,000 by 12:30pm Monday in New York — a 5.4% jump since the war began. Dubai real estate lost nearly a…

Leading domain service Ethereum Name Service ($ENS) announced on Nov 02 that it’s now transitioning into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), facilitated by the launch of an $ENS token and now seeking DAO delegates. The launch tweet notes that despite most of the things running automatically and nobody being able to tamper with anyone’s registration, there are still things requiring human intervention. Ethereum Name Service ($ENS) current administration wants “$ENS root multisig pass over control of the existing $ENS treasury, its future funds, and control of the .$ETH registrar contract that is in charge of the pricing and registration mechanism…

U.S.-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has integrated trading protocol DFlow, allowing traders to exchange value across spot and prediction markets natively on Solana, the companies said on Monday. Coinbase adding DFlow as its primary router will mean eight times less trade failures. The move also increases liquidity on tokens that were previously untradeable, and improves the prices users receive, according to a press release. The DFlow aggregator, which services over a million active traders per month, was tapped by prediction market giant Kalshi in December. Coinbase said that before DFlow, roughly one in 30 trades on Coinbase’s Solana product could not…

BlackRock has moved forward with its Bitcoin premium income strategy, revealing a ticker for its upcoming iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said on X that the fund will trade under “$BITA” and noted that BlackRock has filed an amended S-1 registration statement for the product, describing it as a sequel to its existing Bitcoin ETF lineup. He added that no management fee has been set, with his “over/under” estimate at 38 basis points. There is no official launch date yet. The proposed ETF is designed to combine direct $BTC exposure with an income-generating options overlay.…