Author: NBTC

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC] has ordered Kalshi to honour certain event contracts involving Michigan residents. It argues that states cannot compel federally regulated derivatives exchanges to cancel trades that have already been executed. The decision comes after the regulator exercised its emergency authority to stay an emergency rule. The rule was proposed by Kalshi in response to a Michigan state court order requiring the company to unwind certain previously executed trades. CFTC blocks Kalshi’s emergency rule According to the CFTC, Kalshi submitted an emergency rule on July 14 that would have force-liquidated certain event contracts held by…

Technology group Naver has entered the U.S. crypto infrastructure market through its first investment in the sector, backing New York-based stablecoin payments provider Rain. The move comes as the company prepares for a delayed combination with Dunamu, operator of South Korea’s Upbit exchange. According to the Korea Economic Daily, Naver Ventures joined Rain’s $250 million Series C financing in January. However, the exact investment amount was not disclosed publicly. ICONIQ led the round, which valued Rain at $1.95 billion and lifted its total capital raised above $338 million. Rain Extends Naver’s Stablecoin Payment Reach Basically, Rain builds infrastructure that allows…

HSBC, one of the world’s largest banks, has received approval to operate in the United Kingdom’s Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS), allowing its digital assets platform, HSBC Orion, to support the issuance, servicing and settlement of digital securities. The bank announced Tuesday that HSBC Orion will operate as a digital securities depository within the DSS, a regulatory environment designed to test new technology for securities markets. HSBC said it is the first company approved by the Bank of England to go live in the sandbox. HSBC’s platform will support digitally native bond issuance, including the UK’s planned digital sovereign bond —…

Trading Higher Bitcoin traded as high as $63,832 early Monday, extending a rebound that has carried the largest cryptocurrency from below $60,000 to above $63,000 in five sessions. The market first crossed $63,000 in U.S. morning hours on July 4, leaving bitcoin up 1.4% over 24 hours and 3.6% on the week at that point. Three catalysts set the recovery in motion, according to market observers. Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh signaled that inflation risks have come down, the June jobs report showed the U.S. economy adding just 57,000 nonfarm payrolls, and crowded short positions were forced to unwind as…

The boundaries between a crypto card and a DeFi yield aggregator are dissolving. Plasma One has introduced a stablecoin account that marries fee-free $USDT spending with a cashback token and yield sourced directly from Aave, the largest lending protocol in decentralized finance. According to the product launch details, the offering includes three membership tiers—Lite, Core, and Platinum—each unlocking higher $XPL cashback rates on card transactions. The account is built around USDT0, a wrapped version of the $USDT stablecoin that taps into Aave’s yield-generating markets. Plasma One is clear that it does not operate as a bank and that none of…

A Thai-regulated digital asset manager just made it easier for investors across Asia to buy into Injective without navigating unregulated crypto exchanges. Merkle Capital’s new M-$INJ fund is the first regulated investment vehicle in Asia built exclusively around the $INJ token. The fund, which launched on June 4, is supervised by Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission. It targets both retail and institutional investors who want exposure to $INJ through a compliant structure. What Merkle Capital actually built Merkle Capital secured the first Digital Asset Fund Management license from the Thai SEC back in January 2022. Since then, the firm has…

Pi Network just made its most ambitious move yet, and it has nothing to do with price. On Pi2Day 2026, the network launched three products that shift the entire conversation about what Pi actually is. Not a mining app, not a speculative token sitting in digital wallets waiting for a listing. A functioning infrastructure layer for AI, identity verification and distributed computing that is now available to businesses and developers outside the Pi ecosystem entirely. Pi Is Now Selling Services to the Outside World The most commercially significant launch is PiVerify, a KYC and identity verification service that external businesses…

Interactive Brokers has introduced stablecoin withdrawals and added nine crypto tokens through zerohash as the brokerage expands its digital asset services. Eligible clients can now withdraw US dollars from their brokerage accounts through automatic conversion into USDC, PayPal USD or Ripple USD. The stablecoins can then be transferred to supported external wallets. The service extends the stablecoin deposit feature Interactive Brokers launched in January. That feature allows clients to send stablecoins to a wallet provided through zerohash, where they are converted into dollars and credited to their brokerage accounts. The nine tokens added through zerohash are Aave, Aptos, Canton, Lido…

AxLabs has launched Ax402, a payment gateway that allows AI agents to pay for goods and services on a per-request basis. It is aimed at enabling AI agents to purchase access to data, content, and tools using tokens, without the hassle of maintaining things like accounts, subscriptions, and checkout pages. Ax402 is built on x402, an open protocol that repurposes the HTTP 402 Payment Required status code as the trigger for machine-to-machine payments. The 402 code was reserved in the 1990s for future payment use cases but has sat dormant since. The x402 protocol was originally created by Coinbase and…

Bitcoin’s latest rally pushed it to a two-week high above $63,000 over the weekend before cooling off. According to market data from CoinGecko, Bitcoin briefly touched nearly $63,900 during the US holiday weekend before retreating toward $63,200 on Monday, holding on to most of its weekly gains after rising more than 5% over the past seven days. The weekend advance was driven by a combination of weaker-than-expected US economic data, renewed demand through spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and a wave of short liquidations that accelerated the move higher. Fresh optimism emerged after the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported…