Author: NBTC

Plasma, the EVM-compatible Bitcoin sidechain geared toward stablecoins, opened the doors to its token sale today for users who staked stablecoins in the Plasma vault in June. The chain is selling 10% of the XPL token supply at a $500 million valuation, utilizing the Sonar ICO platform to facilitate Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. The token sale will be open to eligible participants for roughly ten days, with the XPL token slated to officially launch alongside the Plasma mainnet beta. Plasma is backed by USDT issuer Tether’s sister company, Bitfinex, as well as Framework Ventures and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.…

Crypto regulations remain unclear in India, but platforms must register with FIU-IND under anti-money laundering rules. Traders face 30% tax on profits, 1% TDS on every trade, and no loss offsets. The Indian government have stirred up fresh confusion for crypto users and traders. Currently, global crypto exchanges in India exist in a grey area, as they are neither legal nor illegal, and crypto assets remain unregulated under Indian law. Regulation Unclear, But Compliance Mandatory “At present, crypto or virtual assets are not regulated in India. Consequently, the question of the legality or illegality of specific crypto platforms does not…

Has Russia turned Kyrgyzstan’s booming crypto market into a backdoor for moving funds? A new report sheds light on how Kyrgyz-registered exchanges are helping Russian networks evade sanctions. Summary TRM Labs says Kyrgyzstan-based crypto exchanges are helping Russian networks to reroute funds. Kyrgyzstan’s crypto industry is thriving with billions in transactions, but weak oversight leaves it vulnerable to misuse. The Russian ruble-backed stablecoin A7A5 and shell VASPs tied to sanctioned groups are at the center of this growing sanctions evasion network. According to TRM Labs, Kyrgyzstan’s crypto industry has exploded from near-zero to billions in activity since passing its “On…

Bitcoin Core developers have been trying to squash a cockroach of a bug that has bothered full node operators since 2020. This month, it seems like they might have finally exterminated the pesky disk fill attack once and for all. The disk fill attack physically annoys the machines that operate full nodes. Attackers use commands like LogPrintf, LogInfo, LogWarning, or LogError to force the hard drives of victims to excessively write superfluous data to disk. Especially for cheap or older nodes that use non-flash storage with a spinning disk, this excessive logging overwhelms their hard drives, filling it with pointless…

A total of $1.7 billion worth of Ethereum (ETH) withdrawals from decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Aave in the past week have caused significant market volatility. This move by giant investors significantly reduced liquidity on the platform, briefly pushing borrowing rates above 10%. While this increase meant short-term gains for users who deposited their Ethereum to lend on Aave, it turned into a full-blown crisis for investors who implemented strategies to increase their Ethereum staking returns, called “looping.” Looping investors were earning profits by reinvesting Ethereum they had borrowed at low interest rates. However, a sudden increase in interest rates made…

Ethereum validators are experiencing the longest wait times in over a year to withdraw their staked ETH, as growing demand for staking collides with the network’s built-in exit limitations. According to data from ValidatorQueue.com, validators seeking to exit the Ethereum network must now wait approximately 8 days and 6 hours to complete the process, marking the highest delay since early 2023. At the same time, the queue to join the network as a new validator has also surged, with a wait time of around 6 days and 10 hours, the longest since April 2024. The widening gap between entry and…

The U.K. government on Tuesday said it intends to enable the wholesale market to identify the best distributed ledger technology (DLT) use cases as well as roll out tokenization solutions. The country wants DLT – the blockchain technology that underpins crypto – to be utilized across different sectors in wholesale financial markets and create cross market groups “to take forward live activity,” the country’s Treasury said in a policy paper. A part of the plan includes creating a regulatory framework for crypto technology, something which is already underway as the nation sets out to be a crypto hub. The U.K.…

Bitcoin reserve advocate Sen. Cynthia Lummis provided critical comments on Jerome Powell’s role in Operation Chokepoint 2.0. Additionally, she echoed Rep. Anna Luna’s allegations concerning Powell’s perjury. Is that a new turn in Donald Trump’s war on Powell? Summary Sen. Cynthia Lummis stated the Fed Chairman Jerome Powell mismanaged Operation Chokepoint 2.0 Lummis supported Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s perjury allegations, which some see as lawfare against the Fed Chair Pressure on Powell continues as President Trump threatens to fire him for not cutting interest rates Table of Contents Sen. Lummis’ criticism of Powell Operation Chokepoint 2.0 and Powell’s role in…

PNC Bank, one of America’s leading financial institutions, is preparing to offer cryptocurrency buying, selling and custody services to its customers by collaborating with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. In a joint statement on Tuesday, it was stated that PNC will build its own crypto transaction infrastructure using Coinbase’s enterprise “crypto-as-a-service” (CaaS) platform. The Pittsburgh-based bank will allow its customers to buy, sell, and securely store Bitcoin and other digital assets. PNC will also provide certain banking services to Coinbase, further enhancing their mutual partnership. This strategic partnership between PNC and Coinbase is seen as a significant shift in the traditional banking…

Cango Inc., a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has completed its transformation into a Bitcoin miner. Summary Cango Inc., founded in 2010 in China, is listed on the NYSE. The company previously operated an automotive business, but announced a pivot to Bitcoin mining in November 2024. Cango holds over 4,000 BTC and has a fleet capacity of 50 exahashes per second. Cango, a Chinese firm listed in the United States that announced plans to pivot into a Bitcoin (BTC) mining company in November 2024, has confirmed it is now fully transitioned. The company announced its…