Author: NBTC

Stader Labs has officially announced the discontinuation of MaticX, its liquid staking token (LST) designed for the Polygon network. Effective immediately, new deposits for MaticX have been halted, and the token has entered a claim-only phase, signaling the beginning of a structured wind-down process. Timeline for MaticX Redemption The sunsetting process follows a clear, phased schedule designed to give users ample time to reclaim their underlying MATIC tokens. Between June 12 and June 19, a staking contract upgrade will permanently fix the exchange ratio between MaticX and MATIC. This fixed rate will then be used for all subsequent redemptions. From…

The U.S. Department of Justice [DOJ] plans to dismiss its criminal case against Matthew Goettsche, the alleged founder of the BitClub Network cryptocurrency investment scheme, Bloomberg Law reported. This could potentially bring one of the longest-running crypto fraud prosecutions to an end. The reported move comes nearly seven years after federal prosecutors accused Goettsche and several co-defendants of operating a global cryptocurrency mining scheme that allegedly defrauded investors of at least $722 million. While the DOJ is reportedly preparing to dismiss the case with prejudice, no dismissal motion had appeared on the public court docket at the time of writing.…

Aztec Network, an Ethereum Layer 2 built for private smart contracts, said on Tuesday that its Alpha V5 release is live on mainnet, calling it “the fastest private transactions we’ve ever shipped.” The company said Alpha V5 proves a fully private transaction in about 2.5 seconds on a laptop and cuts transaction fees to under $0.05. Aztec’s Alpha V5 page frames those figures as improvements over the prior version, describing the proving time as “~2.5 seconds on a consumer laptop, down 2x from V4” and the sub-$0.05 fee as 50% cheaper for a fully private token transfer. The metrics are…

CryptoQuant reports a sharp increase in Bitcoin exchange deposits reaching around 49,000 $BTC, a level historically linked to higher volatility periods. The firm also highlights rising Ether and altcoin inflows, suggesting coordinated positioning across the crypto market rather than isolated moves. The activity is largely driven by whales and institutional investors, while Bitcoin tests key support near $60,000. Bitcoin and altcoin exchange deposits have climbed sharply across major trading venues, according to CryptoQuant, signaling a possible rise in market volatility across digital assets. The data shows that both Bitcoin and Ether inflows are accelerating simultaneously, a pattern that has often…

In a stark personal account that has resonated across the cryptocurrency community, Zack Soesbee, CEO of Anvil — a development agency focused on the Cardano ecosystem — publicly stated that he has lost virtually everything after dedicating the past five years to the blockchain network. In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), Soesbee detailed how his commitment to Cardano and its native token, $ADA, has left him financially devastated and questioning his future in the space. Five Years of Sacrifice, No Returns Soesbee explained that he and his co-founders operated Anvil for three years without drawing salaries, minimizing…

Five Democratic senators have called for committee hearings “to investigate the national security implications of President Trump’s cryptocurrency holdings” as the chamber considers digital asset market structure legislation. In a Friday notice, the Democratic ranking members of five US Senate committees and subcommittees asked lawmakers to address President Donald Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure, in which he reported earning about $1.4 billion connected to crypto ventures like his memecoin and family’s World Liberty Financial platform. The lawmakers said that the reports “heighten concerns about the President pushing Congress to pass crypto legislation in favor of the very industry he’s cashing in…

A group of crypto and Web3 firms that includes OKX, MetaMask, Matter Labs and Genlayer have formed the “Internet Court” to reach dispute resolutions between AI agents. These days, AI agents negotiate and pay one another without humans in the loop, but as with human-to-human transactions, agent-to-agent transactions will run into contractual disagreements. The problem is that agentic systems have no way to settle these disputes, and traditional courts are not built to handle such cases. Hence the need for the 27-firm-backed protocol, led by the Genlayer Foundation, which makes AI-based payments, escrow and dispute resolution interoperable, according to a…

Why Selling Bitcoin Became the Central Concern Pressure built after weeks of mounting stress in Strategy’s preferred-stock structure, according to a July 3 research note by Galaxy Digital’s head of firmwide research Alex Thorn. STRC, its main preferred security, was meant to trade near $100 but dropped to $71.25 on June 26 as bitcoin prices fell and the company’s cash reserves declined. That sharp decline forced investors to confront a difficult and increasingly urgent question about Strategy’s next move. Would Strategy sell $BTC, issue more common stock or reduce preferred dividends? Each option carried risk for a different group of…

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has set a hard target for the company: to reach $1 billion in recurring operating income by the end of 2026. Such a plans were published on CoinMarketCap, with the top executive especially emphasizing that this billion will not include $XRP token sales or holdings. This move definitively separates the company’s commercial success from the price of the cryptocurrency closely associated with it. The Ripple team is building a classic fintech business based on selling software and infrastructure, one that should generate profit in any market storm. Inside Ripple’s business metrics The foundation for this was…

SEC COO Appointment Keeps Agency Operations In Focus as Crypto Oversight Expands is the kind of crypto story that looks simple at headline level but becomes more useful once you place it inside the wider market backdrop. Personnel moves are not the exciting side of crypto regulation, but they help explain how the agency actually executes its priorities. The reason it deserves attention today is not that one announcement or filing magically changes the whole market. It is that the update adds another data point to a sector still trying to work out where capital, users, and regulation are actually…