Author: NBTC

Coinbase (COIN) shares rose as much as 4.6% after the company outlined a roadmap that included equity trading, AI-powered tools, tokenization and stablecoin infrastructure in its end-of-year System Update. The stock rose to as high as $255.41 in early trading Thursday and was priced recently at $249.48 after the Wednesday announcement. J.P. Morgan’s Kenneth Worthington said the event showed Coinbase expanding its reach by introducing more asset classes and tools to keep users engaged. He highlighted the introduction of U.S. equity trading, perpetual equity futures for non-U.S. users, and the Coinbase Advisor product as signals that the company is reshaping…

South Korea’s Supreme Court has ruled that Bitcoin held on cryptocurrency exchanges can be seized under the country’s Criminal Procedure Act, closing a legal challenge brought by a suspect in a money laundering investigation. The decision, first reported by Chosun Daily, confirms that digital assets stored on exchanges qualify as seizure targets during criminal investigations, even though they do not exist in physical form. South Korea has one of the highest rates of cryptocurrency ownership globally. As of March 2025, more than 16 million people—roughly a third of the population—held crypto accounts at major domestic exchanges. The case stemmed from…

PumpSwap’s market peak daily trading volumes reflect a return to risky trading. New token creation also picked up in January. PumpSwap posted another trading record as meme token activity returned. In January, new token creation on Solana also increased to levels not seen in months. PumpSwap increased its daily volumes to an all-time high of $1.21B, reflecting a return to risky tokens. | Source: DeFi Llama After the general crypto market recovery, the meme market on Solana immediately reacted. As Cryptopolitan reported earlier, meme coin activity surged in early 2026. The meme market contracted in the final months of 2025,…

HyperGPT and ChimpX AI have signed a new strategic partnership that will transform the way people engage with Web3 through AI and decentralized finance. The partnership unites the AI-driven Web3 environment of HyperGPT and user-centred onchain interaction of ChimpX AI. The two systems in integrating conversational AI and smooth blockchain execution are expected to eliminate technical obstacles that have historically hindered the mainstream uptake of decentralized applications. AI meets DeFi, and things just got smarter. 🤝🤖HyperGPT 🤖 is teaming up with @ChimpxAI 🐵 to push the boundaries of how users interact with Web3.From AI-powered agents to seamless onchain actions, this…

A plan to tax California’s billionaires has tech leaders picking sides: some say they’ll pay up, others are packing their bags for different states. Here’s what’s on the table: any California resident worth more than $1 billion would pay a one-time tax of 5 percent on their assets. The money would go to schools, food assistance programs, and healthcare across the state. Tech elite are divided on the proposal Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, worth nearly $159 billion, told Bloomberg Television this week he’s fine with it. “We chose to live in Silicon Valley,” Huang said. “And whatever taxes, I guess…

In a groundbreaking move that bridges traditional finance with decentralized innovation, the Lighter perpetual futures exchange announced on November 15, 2024, that it will now offer 24-hour weekday trading for stock perpetual futures. This strategic expansion fundamentally challenges conventional market hours while providing unprecedented access to global traders. Lighter Perpetual Futures Expands Trading Accessibility The decentralized perpetual futures platform Lighter revealed its enhanced trading schedule through an official Discord announcement. Consequently, traders can now access stock perpetual futures markets continuously from Monday morning through Friday evening. This development represents a significant departure from traditional stock exchange limitations. Traditional equity markets…

Pundi AI has announced a new partnership with OptimAI Network, indicating a major shift to user-owned and decentralized artificial intelligence. The collaboration unites the on-chain, verifiable data infrastructure of Pundi AI to the agentic AI systems of OptimAI Network which are aimed at functioning autonomously in the digital worlds. The two projects together will develop faster AI agents that will be transparent, privacy-conscious, and owned by the communities that contribute to their training. Excited to collaborate with @OptimaiNetwork🤝Bringing verifiable AI data on @BNBCHAIN together with community-powered agentic AI to help push user-owned, privacy-first AI agents forward 🚀🤖 https://t.co/cnNKSd5xvl — Pundi…

If the software developers underpinning decentralized finance (DeFi) aren’t sufficiently protected in the next draft of the crypto regulatory bill set to emerge from the U.S. Senate, the industry may still be pressed to oppose the legislation it’s spent years advocating for. At this stage, it’s the traditional financial sector — including securities industry group SIFMA — that are most aggressively seeking to push back on the DeFi sector’s asks, according to industry leaders. That’s coming at a time when the two relevant Senate committees are hashing out plans to vote on the crypto market structure bill next week —…

PayPal (PYPL) is extending the role of its PYUSD stablecoin into artificial intelligence finance, linking it to onchain funding mechanisms developed by USD.AI, a stablecoin protocol that provides credit to AI companies. Loans issued by USD.AI to finance graphics processing unit (GPUs), data centers and related AI infrastructure will be denominated in PYUSD, with borrowers able to receive proceeds directly into PayPal accounts, according to an announcement shared with CoinDesk on Thursday. The approach is intended to combine familiar payment workflows with programmable settlement suited to long-term financing, rentals and emerging agent-driven transactions. It also demonstrates how stablecoins can be…

Stripe and Crypto.com have partnered to expand access to cryptocurrency payments. The integration allows Stripe-supported merchants to accept crypto payments through Crypto.com Pay, in what the companies described as a step toward merging digital assets with mainstream commerce. Through the new setup, customers will reportedly be able to pay directly with cryptocurrency or stablecoins using their Crypto.com Pay balance. [#highlighted-links#] Stripe will then convert the received payment into the merchant’s local currency and deposit funds into their bank account, simplifying the process for businesses that want to accept crypto without dealing with price volatility. Crypto.com becomes the first crypto firm…