Author: NBTC

SEOUL, South Korea – January 23, 2025 – Fashion Group Hyungji, a prominent South Korean apparel company, has announced a groundbreaking partnership with the Arbitrum Foundation to implement stablecoin payments across its global retail network. This strategic move represents a significant advancement in blockchain adoption within traditional retail sectors, potentially transforming how consumers interact with fashion brands worldwide. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), first reported by EToday, outlines plans to develop a comprehensive digital payment infrastructure leveraging Arbitrum’s Ethereum Layer 2 technology. Stablecoin Payments: A New Era for Retail Transactions Fashion Group Hyungji plans to integrate stablecoin payments throughout its…

One thing we rarely think about is how bad weather can affect Bitcoin’s security, but it happens fairly regularly. Snow can legitimately pose a risk to Bitcoin miners who secure the blockchain. The snow shows up on the weather map first, a fat smear of color stretching across state lines. Then it turns into the stuff you actually feel: power lines dancing in the wind, crews on standby, households trying to keep the heat on. Somewhere behind that very normal human scene is a different kind of appliance: rows of Bitcoin miners that do one job when electricity is cheap…

Asseto Finance, a Real-World Asset (RWA) platform that bridges traditional finance (TradFi) with decentralized finance (DeFi), is pleased to bridge traditional asset management with on-chain finance by deploying funds on-chain in the form of the $AdDLE token. The primary strategic purpose of this deployment is to securely transition a regulated $200M institutional fund to a fully onchain model, ensuring transparent services. Institutional RWA in Practice: Asseto Powers DL Holdings’ $200M Fund MigrationWe are thrilled to announce that Asseto has successfully empowered DL Holdings (https://t.co/yx90vmt3J2) to deploy their $200M HKD CMF Asia Equity Opportunity Fund on-chain as the $AdDLE token.By… pic.twitter.com/6pnmJlmMJJ…

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said that strict regulations have negatively forced high-demand companies to remain private for years, allowing early gains to flow mainly to private and credit investors. Writing on X on January 26, he maintained that going fully on-chain could unlock early price discovery, lower costs, and significantly increase the accessibility of capital formation. Armstrong suggested, “We need to make capital formation way easier for private companies.” He added that the lack of liquid markets during a company’s early lifecycle often leads to weak price performance once the firm eventually goes public. Brian Armstrong proposes that startups go…

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase continues to expand its derivatives portfolio. According to a statement from the exchange, a perpetual futures contract for Sentient (SENT) will soon be available for trading on the Coinbase platform. Coinbase Markets announced that this contract, to be listed under the name SENT-PERP, is planned to be launched on January 22, 2026, at 10:00 PM, or after the necessary liquidity conditions are met. With the new product, investors will have the opportunity to trade with leverage on the price movements of the Sentient (SENT) asset. Perpetual futures contracts are known as derivative instruments that do not have…

After weeks in which the bitcoin BTC$87,851.82 price has been constrained mainly between $85,000 and $95,000, the crypto market may be thrown a reason to break out of the doldrums on Wednesday, when the Federal Open Markets Committee sets U.S. interest rates. May, that is. Not will. The consensus, more than 97%, is for the Fed to keep rates steady at 3.50%-3.75%, according to the CME’s Fedwatch tool. As ever, what’s said at the post-decision press conference may be more influential than the decision itself. U.S. earning season picks up. While there are no major crypto companies scheduled to report,…

A 10‑bank consortium is launching Qivalis, a euro‑pegged stablecoin led by ex‑Coinbase Germany CEO Jan‑Oliver Sell to challenge dollar‑based tokens and boost European payments autonomy from 2H 2026. Summary BNP Paribas, ING, UniCredit, KBC, Caixabank, Danske Bank, SEB, DekaBank, Banca Sella, and RBI formed Amsterdam‑based Qivalis, hiring 45–50 staff under CEO Jan‑Oliver Sell and chair Howard Davies.​ The euro‑pegged stablecoin will first target crypto trading with near‑instant, low‑fee settlement before expanding into broader payment use cases once it secures an EMI license from the Dutch central bank.​ With few euro stablecoins live (SG‑FORGE at ~€64m), Qivalis is pitching itself as…

River, a cross-chain DeFi infrastructure entity, has partnered with United Stables, a stablecoin-centered Web3 initiative. The partnership attempts to streamline the $U stablecoin’s cross-chain liquidity and utility. As per River’s official X announcement, the joint effort focuses on streamlining cross-chain access along with interconnected yield opportunities and liquidity. So, the development leverages River’s infrastructure to enable interaction with $U while requiring no chain-specific technical complications. River x @UTechStablesRiver is partnering with @UTechStables to drive $U utility and connect liquidity across ecosystems.With River, $U can be used across ecosystems without exposing users to chain specific complexity. Liquidity and yield remain connected…

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) Bitcoin is struggling to hold ground as concerns over the strength of the yen and fiscal instability drove a divergence between crypto and traditional safe-haven assets. Bitcoin fell 0.8% in 24 hours to sit below $88,000, and ether lost more than 1.6% to just under $2,900. The broader CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index retreated 1.54%. The yen, meantime, rallied more than 1.4% against the dollar after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Japan would “take all necessary measures to address speculative and highly abnormal movement.” While Takaichi didn’t identify the market movements of…

Binance Futures announced it will continue to expand its portfolio in the derivatives market by making two new USDⓈ margin-based perpetual futures contracts available to users. According to the exchange’s statement, the SPACEUSDT and FIGHTUSDT currency pairs will be available for trading on the Binance Futures platform on January 23, 2026. This step aims to offer investors more trading options and enhance the user experience. The SPACEUSDT Perpetual Futures Contract will be launched on January 23, 2026 at 2:45 PM. The maximum leverage for this contract is set at 20x. The underlying asset of the SPACE pair, Spacecoin (SPACE), stands…