Author: NBTC

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said that “stablecoins are the most popular virtual asset used in illicit transactions,” including Iran and North Korea, and therefore calling for stricter oversight of stablecoin issuers in a 42-page report published Tuesday. In January 2026, the global watchdog said it found stablecoins accounted for most illicit onchain activity. It estimated there was approximately $51 billion in illicit stablecoin activity relating to fraud and scams in 2024. In its March 2026 report, the task force again warned dollar-pegged tokens have become a key vehicle for illicit finance. It cited a Chainalysis report that said…

TL;DR Prediction market activity remains elevated in February despite the first monthly pullback since August. Kalshi leads with $9.8B in trading volume, widening the gap over Polymarket, which records $7.6B. Total industry volume reaches $23.4B, confirming sustained engagement across regulated and crypto-native platforms as the sector enters a more disciplined growth phase. Prediction market volume steadies in February as Kalshi pulls ahead and Polymarket cools. After months of rapid expansion, the sector records its first monthly decline since August 2025, yet activity remains historically high. The moderation reflects consolidation rather than structural weakness, with leading platforms maintaining strong liquidity and…

In a landmark move for South Korea’s burgeoning digital finance sector, artificial intelligence firm Focus AI has finalized its acquisition of the Busan Digital Asset Exchange (Bdan). This pivotal transaction, confirmed on February 27, 2025, positions Focus AI as the controlling shareholder with a 40.61% stake. Consequently, the deal marks a significant consolidation within Asia’s competitive real-world asset (RWA) tokenization landscape. The acquisition process, which commenced in December of the previous year, concluded with the final payment, enabling Focus AI to surpass other major stakeholders like ITcen Global, which retains approximately 19%. Focus AI Acquisition Reshapes South Korea’s Digital Asset…

AEON, a financial infrastructure designed specifically for the artificial intelligence (AI) economy, is excited to announce its strategic partnership with Zano, an open-source, Layer-1 blockchain focused on privacy, security, and scalability of transactions by default. This partnership is aimed at enhancing the utility of $ZANO in the market as a digital currency in everyday commerce. AEON X @zano_project🤝With AEON, users can now spend $ZANO at checkout online & offline across 50M+ merchants in emerging markets, bringing privacy-first crypto into daily life and powering the next wave of AI-native economy.https://t.co/hmHXeTFN1t pic.twitter.com/cENIzfvn8q — AEON.XYZ (@AEON_Community) March 5, 2026 Zano is the platform…

Solana price remained under pressure this week, continuing a downward trend that started in September last year when it peaked at $252. Summary Solana price continued its strong downward trend this week. Key network metrics like active addresses and transactions continued soaring. Its ETF inflows continued rising and is beating Ethereum. Solana ($SOL) token dropped for eight consecutive weeks and is now hovering near its lowest level since January 2024. It has dropped by over 73% from its highest level in January last year. The ongoing Solana price crash continued even as the network growth gained momentum and beat Ethereum…

Shanghai’s benchmark index surged to its highest close in a decade on Monday, as Chinese investors piled into energy, gold, and defense stocks in the wake of the Iran conflict — further underscoring why Chinese capital continues to flow away from crypto markets. The rally, combined with Beijing’s tightening grip on domestic liquidity ahead of this week’s National People’s Congress, narrows the already slim chances that Chinese capital will find its way into crypto anytime soon. A Tale of Two Markets The Shanghai Composite Index closed up 0.5% at 4,182.6 points on March 2, its highest since June 2015, even…

The White House set a March 1st deadline for the banking industry and crypto firms to reach a deal on stablecoin yield, clearing the way for the Clarity Act, the market structure legislation meant to put the industry on a solid legal foundation in the U.S. Clarity was passed by the House seven months ago. The Senate has set many deadlines to move it, and they have all gone unmet. The latest deadline also blew by with no deal. The crypto industry has been fixated on legislation as the next catalyst, as if it is the only path toward the…

TL;DR Brazil’s federal tax authority reported R$242 million in declared $XRP transactions during September, covering 308,411 entries. The figures come from mandatory reporting rules for exchanges, foreign platforms, and peer-to-peer transfers above R$30,000. Because this data comes directly from official filings rather than estimates, it provides one of the clearest government-backed snapshots of $XRP activity in a major Latin American economy. Brazil may have delivered one of the clearest adoption signals yet for $XRP. Official data tied to tax filings shows hundreds of thousands of transactions in a single month, giving the market something more concrete than exchange dashboards or…

Barclays, the British multinational banking giant, is exploring building a blockchain platform for payments and deposits, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing people with knowledge of the exploration. The bank is evaluating technology providers and aims to select partners as early as April. The initiative could encompass both stablecoin integration and tokenized deposit capabilities. Barclays has shifted from a cautious approach to active infrastructure investment to keep pace with industry peers like JPMorgan and HSBC, which have deployed distributed ledger technology in financial services. In October 2025, the London-based lender joined a bank-led consortium to explore a reserve-backed digital currency on public…

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has published a new blog post on X outlining his latest vision for scaling the blockchain, arguing the network can boost capacity in the near term while laying the groundwork for a longer-term shift to advanced cryptography and>in which much of the ecosystem’s scaling strategy centered on layer-2 rollups. The plan comes on the heels of the Ethereum Foundation publishing a ‘strawmap’ aimed at making the network more efficient in the long term. In the short term, Buterin says Ethereum can safely increase throughput by making blocks easier and faster to check. Upcoming upgrades will allow…