Author: NBTC

IREN Ltd., once known for mining Bitcoin, is undergoing a dramatic reinvention as an AI infrastructure provider—a transformation that will face a critical test when the company reports second-quarter earnings on Thursday. Summary IREN has pivoted from Bitcoin mining to AI cloud infrastructure, repurposing its energy sites into data centers and securing a $9.7 billion partnership with Microsoft to support next-generation compute. Shares have sold off sharply ahead of Q2 earnings as investors focus on dilution risk. The upcoming earnings report has investors concerned over whether funding roughly 140,000 GPUs by year-end could require equity issuance. Formerly Iris Energy, IREN…

AEON recently announced that it has launched its official native support for $USDC on Starknet, a significant advancement in merging the world of decentralized finance with the real world. While digital assets have thrived in both arms, through speculation as well as taking part in managing protocols via on-chain governance, they have been limited at the point of sale because of high fees and delays in processing transactions. With this new addition to AEON’s platform, they hope to eliminate these limitations so that cryptocurrency payments are treated not as a niche hobby but rather as an infrastructure that can handle…

$XRP YouTuber Zach Rector says the crypto market is still overlooking what could become one of the $XRP Ledger’s biggest growth drivers: DeFi. According to Rector, the infrastructure now coming together on XRPL suggests a surge in decentralized finance activity that is not yet reflected in $XRP’s market valuation. Key Points XRPL DeFi Growth Overlooked by the Market: Crypto influencer Zach Rector highlights that the infrastructure for decentralized finance on XRPL is improving rapidly but is not yet fully reflected in $XRP’s market valuation. Strong Foundations for XRPL DeFi Development: While known for fast, low-cost payments, XRPL’s native decentralized exchange…

A whale wallet, 0xFB7, has bought $33.88 million worth of 14,750 $ETH from FalconX. $ETH crypto price has dropped by 10.01% in a single day. An economist has speculated on more sales in the next few days. A whale wallet has just added over 14k $ETH to their holdings. This is the second transaction in less than 6 hours. The move comes at a time when every crypto price is seen declining, with the trajectory led by BTC. It is speculated that crypto selling may continue or increase in the next few days. Whale Wallet Accumulating $ETH According to a…

Digital assets are moving quietly yet inexorably from niche experiment to structural financial layer, and 2026 may be the year the broader market finally notices. That’s the view from Fidelity Digital Assets, whose recent 2026 Look Ahead research report frames digital assets as undergoing the kind of fundamental transformation once seen in global trade, a point underscored by Fidelity VP of Research Chris Kuiper in a recent interview with CoinDesk “Digital assets are approaching their shipping container moment,” Kuiper told CoinDesk, an analogy he borrows from The Box, Mark Levinson’s book about how a simple standardized metal container revolutionized global…

Scammers are increasingly exploiting Arizona’s approximately 600 crypto ATMs to defraud consumers, particularly older adults, prompting Attorney General Kris Mayes to issue an urgent warning and launch new tools to help victims recover funds. Arizonans lost over $177 million to crypto ATM scams in 2024 alone, Mayes announced Monday, warning that anyone directing consumers to use crypto kiosks represents a “very, very high chance” of running a scam. “My message to Arizonans is this: be careful around the physical cryptocurrency ATMs we’re seeing pop up around the state,” Mayes said in a statement.  The office also launched a new…

A survey of senior crypto investors and executives suggests capital priorities are shifting away from decentralized finance (DeFi) and toward core infrastructure, as decision-makers focus on liquidity constraints and market plumbing. The findings come from a new report published by the digital asset conference CfC St. Moritz, based on responses from 242 attendees of its invitation-only event in January. Respondents included institutional investors, founders, C-suite executives, regulators and family office representatives. According to the survey, 85% of respondents selected infrastructure as their top funding priority, ahead of DeFi, compliance, cybersecurity and user experience. While expectations for revenue growth and innovation…

In a significant on-chain transaction that captured the attention of market analysts globally, Trend Research, a prominent entity under the venture capital giant LD Capital, executed a strategic sale of 30,000 Ethereum ($ETH), valued at approximately $70.18 million, on the Binance exchange. This pivotal move, first identified by the analytics platform Onchain Lens, was specifically conducted to repay a substantial loan, signaling a nuanced shift in risk management strategy within the institutional crypto sphere. The transaction provides a compelling case study in portfolio rebalancing, debt management, and the sophisticated financial engineering now commonplace among major crypto-native investment firms. Trend Research’s…

Xi Jinping wants China’s tech companies to stop tearing each other apart with endless price cuts. Platforms keep slashing costs to beat each other, and now regulators are getting involved. Beijing doesn’t want another year of businesses throwing subsidies at users just to win market share. The government is under pressure to stop this, especially with deflation hanging over the economy and prices falling for more than three years straight. The main watchdog, SAMR, is picking off companies one by one. First, it went after food delivery services. Then this week, it announced an investigation into China’s biggest travel booking…

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) warned Monday that those involved in alleged secret payments from a UAE investor could face jail time, describing the situation as “potentially criminal conduct” tied to the transfer of sensitive defense technology following a deal involving Trump-linked crypto firm World Liberty Financial. “A UAE investor secretly gave Trump $187 million and his top Middle East envoy $31 million. And then Trump gave that investor access to sensitive defense technology that broke decades of national security precedent,” Murphy tweeted. “Brazen, open corruption. And we shouldn’t pretend it’s normal.” A UAE investor secretly gave Trump $187 million and…