Author: NBTC

Minutes from the Fed’s September meeting may indicate that officials are beginning to consider ending the balance sheet reduction plan. The Fed cut interest rates by 25 basis points at its last meeting. The minutes of that meeting will be released today at 10:00 PM (UTC+3). The Fed, which reversed the expansionary policies implemented during the pandemic, has been shrinking its balance sheet for a long time, reducing market liquidity. However, according to Citi economists, recent trends in interest rate markets indicate that financing conditions are already tightening. This suggests that the Fed’s balance sheet size may be approaching expected…

The South African Reserve Bank issued its second financial stability report for 2025, identifying digital assets and stablecoins as a new risk as the number of users in the country continues to grow. In a report released on Tuesday, South Africa’s central bank identified “crypto assets and stablecoins” as a new risk for technology-enabled financial innovation. The bank reported that the number of combined users on the country’s three largest crypto exchanges reached 7.8 million as of July, with about $1.5 billion held in custody at the end of 2024. “Due to their exclusively digital – and therefore borderless –…

The minutes of the meeting containing details about the FED’s 25 basis point interest rate cut decision taken last month have been published. Here are all the details you need to know from the minutes: Few officials felt it was advisable not to cut interest rates in September. One participant supported a half-point rate cut at last month’s meeting. Officials noted a slowdown in employment growth and a further increase in the unemployment rate. Most participants argued that there were upside risks to their expectations regarding the inflation outlook. Most officials expect inflation levels to remain high in the near…

For years, prediction market founders and their backers have operated on a simple assumption: Register as a federally regulated designated contract market, plug into the Commodity Exchange Act, and state gambling laws become someone else’s problem. However, a federal court in Nevada has complicated things, shattering this theory with a ruling that says contracts paying out on the outcome of a sporting event are not swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act, meaning they do not fall within the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s federal jurisdiction. In the ruling, Judge Andrew Gordon made clear that this was not just a technical reading…

Shayne Coplan, the founder and CEO of premier prediction market Polymarket, is the youngest self-made billionaire at 27-years-old, according to Bloomberg. Coplan’s ascent comes after Polymarket was valued at $9 billion following a $2 billion investment from the NYSE owner, Intercontinental Exchange, also referred to as ICE. Coplan joins a prestigious list of crypto billionaires, which includes Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, Strategy CEO Michael Saylor, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. Wallets linked to the elusive Bitcoin creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, are valued at $134.5 billion, according to Arkham Intelligence, which would make him the world’s 12th richest person, per the…

A Canadian subsidiary of Bitcoin Depot Inc. was slapped with an $18.47 million arbitration award following a protracted dispute with bankrupt crypto ATM operator Cash Cloud Inc. over alleged hardware and software failures that crippled thousands of machines. The Atlanta-based Bitcoin ATM operator disclosed in a Form 8-K filing on Monday that an arbitral tribunal administered by the Canadian Arbitration Association ruled in favor of Cash Cloud after hearings held between December 2024 and October 2025.  An arbitration award is a legally binding decision issued by a private arbitration panel that typically carries the same enforcement weight as a court…

Liquidity provider and ETF market maker Flow Traders has gone live as an operator on Cap, a protected private credit marketplace built atop the EigenLayer mainnet. The launch provides a “blueprint for how institutional finance comes on-chain,” Sreeram Kannan, Founder and CEO of Eigen Labs, said in a statement shared with Decrypt. As an autonomous verifiable service (AVS) on the EigenLayer network, Cap enables Flow Traders to access EigenLayer’s slashing, redistribution, and unique stake features, bringing institutional capital to the protocol. This illustrates that major firms can interact with decentralized protocols without compromising on accountability and risk management standards, Kannan…

In an interview with CNBC, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva highlighted the uncertainty surrounding the global economy, stating that markets should accept this situation as a “new normal.” Georgieva also said the Fed may need to cut interest rates further as part of its balance between fighting inflation and supporting growth. Assessing the global economic outlook ahead of the IMF’s 2025 annual meetings, Georgieva shared her expectations for the Fed’s upcoming steps. The fund announced that it expects further interest rate cuts from the Fed, anticipating that efforts to control inflation will be rewarded. Georgieva argued that…

As tokenization continues expanding into real-world asset classes, blockchain developers are now turning toward one of the internet’s most established markets: domain names. Today, Doma Protocol launched its mainnet, introducing what it calls the first DNS-compliant blockchain infrastructure for transforming traditional Web2 domains into programmable DeFi assets. The rollout aims to modernize the $360 billion secondary domain ecosystem through fractional ownership, ERC-20 trading, and cross-chain liquidity — all while preserving DNS resolution and adhering to existing regulatory frameworks. Internet Real Estate Meets DeFi Infrastructure Operating as a Layer 2 on the OP Stack, Doma leverages LayerZero for cross-chain operability and…

The UK Government has announced the creation of a new role, the Digital Markets Champion, to accelerate the digitalisation of wholesale financial markets. According to Bloomberg, this position will coordinate the private sector’s efforts in the field of tokenization and drive the digital finance transformation in the country. Speaking at the Digital Assets Week conference in London on Wednesday, Lucy Rigby, Under Secretary for Economic Affairs at the Treasury, stated that the new ambassador will take on the role of convening, guiding and coordinating with the private sector the tokenization process of wholesale financial markets in the UK. Tokenization refers…