Author: NBTC

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…

South Korean cryptocurrency traders woke up to a significant disruption on Thursday as the Bybit mobile application became unsearchable and unavailable for download on the Google Play Store within the country. The removal follows a formal notice issued by Google on January 28, 2026, warning that it could restrict access to apps from overseas cryptocurrency exchanges that have not registered as Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), a specialized agency operating under South Korea’s Financial Services Commission. Regulatory Background and Google’s Enforcement The action is a direct consequence of South Korea’s stringent regulatory framework for…

Bitcoin’s realized profit and loss ratio has fallen to a 43-month low of -0.35, a figure that signals extreme market-wide loss conditions but has historically coincided with market bottoms, blockchain analytics platform CryptoQuant said. The Bitcoin realized P&L ratio — which measures the net percentage of Bitcoin ($BTC) in profit or loss relative to total supply — hasn’t fallen this low since December 2022, shortly after FTX shockingly collapsed and sent Bitcoin below $16,000. “Historically the indicator has marked $BTC bottoms with extreme precision,” CryptoQuant said on Thursday. In 2015 and 2019 the Bitcoin realized P&L ratio also fell below…

The story most commonly told about stablecoins runs in one direction, i.e., they solve cross-border payment friction, settling in seconds, whereas correspondent banking takes days. Furthermore, they reduce transaction costs in corridors where traditional infrastructure is expensive, all while providing access to dollar-denominated financial instruments for populations outside the US. The volumes support this framing, given stablecoin transfer volumes reached $33 trillion by Q4 2025. But there seems to be a parallel story quietly accumulating evidence behind the scenes, which is what happens when a compliant, regulated stablecoin pegged to a local currency enters a domestic economy on its own…

According to the Ripple stablecoin tracker website, $55.9 million in $RLUSD was burned in the last seven days amid quiet minting and burn activity in June. June started with significant $RLUSD activity, with $127.4 million minted and $12 million burned on the first day of the month. However, activity declined as June progressed, with less $RLUSD minted than burned. In the last seven days, $55.9 million in $RLUSD was burned according to the Ripple stablecoin tracker website, while $8.8 million was minted. There was less activity compared to what was seen in May, despite numerous announcements regarding $RLUSD in June.…

JPMorgan’s recent post on regulatory clarity has been viewed positively by the crypto industry. BitGo CEO Mike Belshe said the bank’s support for regulatory clarity could improve the CLARITY Act’s chances of passing the Senate. However, crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett clarified that JPMorgan is not endorsing the CLARITY Act itself. BitGo CEO Says JPMorgan’s Comments Could Boost CLARITY Act BitGo CEO Mike Belshe believes JPMorgan’s recent comments on digital assets could improve the chances of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act becoming law. In a post on X, Belshe argued that the world’s largest bank has indirectly supported the…

Cryptocurrency exchange Backpack has introduced a 24-hour, real-time U.S. stock trading service, allowing global investors to buy and hold actual shares of major companies rather than synthetic derivatives. The platform, which launched this week, initially supports trading in SpaceX (SPCX), Micron (MU), and SanDisk (SNDK), with plans to expand the roster in the coming months. How the service works Backpack’s new offering leverages liquidity from traditional stock exchanges to provide instant settlement and continuous price discovery, even outside standard market hours. Users can deposit funds using both fiat currencies and stablecoins, bridging the gap between traditional finance and the crypto…