Author: NBTC

US President Donald Trump reportedly will not grant a pardon to Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, who is serving a 25-year sentence for his role in the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. According to a Thursday interview with Trump by The New York Times, the president said he had no intention of pardoning Bankman-Fried and others, including music producer Sean Combs and former New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez. Bankman-Fried has been behind bars since August 2023 when a federal judge revoked his bail before his criminal trial. In the same interview, Trump pushed back against questions regarding potential conflicts of interest with…

ArbOS Dia went live on Arbitrum One and Nova, updating gas pricing to smooth fee spikes and raising the minimum base fee to 0.02 gwei. The upgrade adds passkey-ready secp256r1 support aligned with Ethereum’s post-Fusaka spec and expands custom-chain gas tokens. Arbitrum has released the ArbOS Dia upgrade for Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova. The upgrade targets smoother layer-two fees, higher throughput, and updated tooling. Dia changes how Arbitrum sets the layer-two base fee during demand spikes. It replaces one gas target and one adjustment window with several higher targets and longer windows. Arbitrum also increased the default minimum base…

Cathie Wood, the Ark Invest CEO who heralded AI as “the most transformative technology in history” while investing millions of dollars in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, was seemingly duped this week into wishing an AI-generated child happy birthday. Wood has previously denounced claims that AI is a “bubble,” and spent $16.2 million on Tempus AI stock last month. However, despite this, she was unable to spot “AI-slop” in the wild. Wood sent birthday wishes to “Ava,” after seeing an image of the “girl” celebrating her fifth birthday with her father. The accompanying caption reads, “I am all she has since her…

New York Assemblyman Clyde Vanel reintroduced legislation on Wednesday that would restrict prediction markets in one of the country’s most populous states—a day before Polymarket clinched a deal with the New York Rangers, the professional ice hockey team. Under the ORACLE Act, which was first introduced in November, companies like Polymarket would be prohibited from offering event contracts that hinge on the outcome of specific games, such as Thursday’s scheduled faceoff between the Rangers and Buffalo Sabers. The legislation would still allow prediction markets to field bets on the outcomes of tournaments, such as who could be next to win…

Gemini, the Winklevii-founded cryptocurrency, has used Grok (xAI’s chatbot) to showcase the massive price action on XRP. The popular US trading platform asked the chatbot to identify why the token was experiencing such an impressive pump. Hey @grok why is XRP pumping? pic.twitter.com/DaeLFdLJCI — Gemini (@Gemini) January 6, 2026 A major partnership The “chummy” relationship between Gemini and the XRP community is the result of a formal business partnership that was solidified in late 2025. In August 2025, Gemini and Ripple officially collaborated to launch the “XRP Edition” of the Gemini Credit Card. Tyler Winklevoss explicitly marketed this to the…

The Python SDK from Hedera supports multiple AI frameworks and allows AI agents to execute crypto-native actions like payments, token management, and more. It supports use cases ranging from automated treasury and payment agents to on-chain messaging. Hedera blockchain has recently expanded its developer tooling by releasing a Python software development kit (SDK), in a move that offers greater access to blockchain-enabled AI development. This new Python SDK is built for the Hedera Agent Kit, and allows developers to work on AI as well as DLT. Python SDK Expands Hedera Agent Kit Ecosystem The Python SDK follows the earlier launch…

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…