Author: NBTC

Russian brokerage firm Finam has registered the country’s first cryptocurrency mining-focused investment fund with the Bank of Russia. The company plans to begin trading the fund’s shares in the coming days. A Russian broker Finam has registered a cryptocurrency mining-focused investment fund with the Bank of Russia and plans to begin trading its shares in the coming days. The fund’s mining infrastructure uses a gas-powered setup to supply energy for mining equipment. Finam said it’s… — Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) February 16, 2026 This marks a huge step for Russia’s crypto industry. While the country legalized cryptocurrency mining in 2024, it…

Pharos Network, a financial Layer 1 blockchain, has announced the formation of the RealFi Alliance, a strategic initiative aimed at bringing greater standardization and coordination to institutional real-world asset (RWA) activity onchain, according to an announcement shared with Finbold on February 23. The alliance brings together asset issuers, financial infrastructure providers, and onchain builders to help move the RWA market beyond isolated pilot programs toward a more scalable and operational framework. The inaugural cohort includes Chainlink, Asseto Finance, Ember, Faroo, LayerZero, R25, Re7 Labs, TopNod, and Centrifuge. Coordinating infrastructure, liquidity, and compliance Pharos said the RealFi Alliance is structured to…

The decentralized exchange (DEX) industry had a total weekly trading volume of $59.51 billion which is the latest market snapshot provided by Phoenix Group as of February 20, 2026. The market had experienced a very steep weekly 31.87% drop in activity, in spite of the high aggregate number, an indicator of more extensive cooling of the crypto markets. TOP #DECENTRALIZED EXCHANGES BY WEEKLY TRADING VOLUME #Uniswap #PancakeSwap #Raydium #Aerodrome #Orca #Balancer #Meteora #Curve #Hyperliquid pic.twitter.com/hXrGqlhddm — PHOENIX – Crypto News & Analytics (@pnxgrp) February 20, 2026 Meanwhile, DEX and CEX supremacy were at 14.63%, meaning that centralized exchanges still take…

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin remains one of the wealthiest figures in crypto based on on-chain data. Public wallet records show he controls more than 224,000 $ETH across known addresses. With the Ethereum price trading around $1,900, those holdings are valued near $439 million. During Ethereum’s 2014 presale, approximately 16.53% of the initial 72 million $ETH supply was allocated to the founding team. This allocation became the foundation of Vitalik Buterin’s long-term crypto wealth. While exact individual distributions were not publicly itemized at launch, blockchain data shows that Buterin controlled over 662,000 $ETH in 2015, representing about 0.91% of the total…

Inquiries about whether pensions can be paid in crypto have become one of the most frequent non-standard requests received by the Social Fund of Russia, a state-run institution responsible for managing Russia’s public pension system. In 2025, the Social Fund’s call center handled roughly 37 million calls, the vast majority related to routine matters such as pensions, benefits and maternity capital. However, operators also increasingly fielded questions about digital assets, according to a Saturday report from Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Russian Gazette), the official daily newspaper of the Russian government. Among the most common crypto-related inquiries were whether Russian citizens could receive…

A federal judge in Tennessee has granted a preliminary injunction preventing state officials from enforcing gambling laws against prediction market platform Kalshi, marking a significant win for the federally regulated exchange in its escalating legal battles with state regulators. Summary A Tennessee federal court granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Tennessee Sports Wagering Council from enforcing state gambling laws against Kalshi while litigation continues. U.S. District Judge Aleta A. Trauger signaled Kalshi is likely to succeed in arguing its sports event contracts fall under federal derivatives law regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, not state betting statutes. The ruling…

Key Highlights: BlackRock moved about $150 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum from Coinbase-linked custody wallets in a single coordinated transfer. The transfer likely relates to ETF operations such as share creation, redemption, or internal custody rebalancing rather than direct speculative buying. Institutional flows remain a key driver of crypto markets, and such large movements often signal shifts in ETF demand or positioning. BlackRock has once again grabbed headlines after making large crypto transfers through its wallet. On February 24, monitoring data shared by TheDataNerd showed that wallets associated with the firm moved 2,086 Bitcoin and 8,459 Ethereum out of accounts…

The recent slowdown in mining led to the biggest dip in difficulty in six months. The shift will give current miners some breathing space, as $BTC remains below $70,000. $BTC mining showed the biggest single drop of difficulty, following the latest recalculation. Difficulty had its single biggest drop in six months, sinking to levels not seen since August 2025. The latest $BTC difficulty calculation had a steep downturn, reflecting seasonal shutdowns, as well as non-viable miners moving away from the market. | Source: CoinWarz. The difficulty dip is a mix of seasonal shutdowns, as well as decisions by some miners…

AI agents are becoming persistent, autonomous, and deeply embedded in everyday workflows. But as they gain the ability to act on our behalf, a harder question emerges: who controls the data, the execution, and the trust layer? — Today, $NEAR AI introduced its answer. Announced live at NEARCON 2026, IronClaw is a new open-source, verifiable AI agent runtime designed for a future where agents run continuously — without exposing sensitive data, credentials, or user intent. A Runtime Built for Autonomous AI — Without Blind Trust IronClaw builds on the original OpenClaw vision, but strengthens it with cryptographic guarantees from the…

RubberVerseX, a RWA tokenization platform that transforms rubber plantation resources into digital assets on-chain, today announced a strategic partnership with Rocket-IDO, a cutting-edge Web3 cross-chain launchpad platform that offers one-stop incubation and IDO (Initial DEX Offering) services for blockchain projects. This collaboration reflects a crucial step towards the two platforms’ mission of building a more innovative, effective, and scalable blockchain ecosystem. RubberVerseX is a Thailand-based blockchain platform with expertise in tokenizing rubber production into digital assets. Real-world rubber resources (ingredients) such as latex, caucho, and several others are tokenized under the Thailand regulatory framework. This ensures transparency, security, and compliance,…