Author: NBTC

Debates on South Korea’s comprehensive Digital Asset Basic Act have spilled into 2026 with no end in sight as regulators continue to clash over who should control stablecoin issuance and how far major cryptocurrency exchanges should be regulated. Lee Eog-weon, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) chair, had promised that the second-phase virtual asset legislation would be ready by the end of last year. However, divisions between the FSC, the Bank of Korea, industry participants, and political parties have pushed implementation into the new year, with no clear timeline for resolution. What is South Korea’s disagreement about stablecoins? The Bank of…

In a landmark report published this week, global cryptocurrency research firm Four Pillars has identified a critical vulnerability plaguing modern decentralized applications: the inability to objectively verify off-chain computations. The firm’s analysis reveals how EigenCloud presents a groundbreaking solution to this fundamental trust problem, potentially transforming how artificial intelligence, prediction markets, and institutional finance interact with blockchain technology. This development arrives at a crucial moment when applications increasingly rely on complex external computations while demanding ironclad verification. EigenCloud’s Architecture for Verifiable Computation EigenCloud represents a sophisticated architectural approach that fundamentally reimagines how off-chain computations achieve verifiability. The system ingeniously combines…

Sileon, a multichain lending protocol that allows crypto users and investors to borrow and lend crypto assets across multiple blockchain networks, today announced a strategic partnership with InitVerse, an enterprise-grade Web3 infrastructure platform that simplifies decentralized application (DAPP) development and deployment. As part of the collaboration, Sileon integrated its crypto lending platform into InitVerse’s scalable Layer-1 infrastructure to enable greater growth, faster DeFi deployment, seamless access to capital, and an advanced user experience. By functioning as a multichain lending platform, Sileon aims to simplify crypto lending and borrowing across numerous blockchains. Its decentralized lending protocol, which is based in California,…

Stablecoins moved more than $35 trillion on blockchain rails last year, but only about 1% of that was for real-world payments, according to a new report by the consultancy firm McKinsey and the blockchain data firm Artemis Analytics. Their analysis estimated that only $380 billion of activity reflected actual payments, such as paying suppliers, sending remittances or funding payroll. That represents only a tiny fraction, some 0.02% of the overall global payments volume, which McKinsey put at more than $2 quadrillion annually. The finding comes at a time when competition to dominate stablecoin-based payments is intensifying. Traditional payment giants like…

If Congress fails to pass market structure legislation this year, the U.S. crypto market would not revert to the enforcement-heavy environment of 2022 and 2023, but it would remain structurally constrained at a moment when global adoption and institutional interest are accelerating, Wall Street broker Benchmark said. “The absence of legislation would cause a structural risk premium to persist across much of the digital asset ecosystem,” wrote analyst Mark Palmer in the Monday report, adding that this would cap valuation expansion for U.S.-exposed platforms. Palmer said failure to pass legislation would delay, not derail, crypto’s maturation, leaving the U.S. market…

Orbs, a Layer 3 blockchain, has announced Gryps has integrated its Perpetual Hub Ultra to bring institutional-grade onchain perpetual futures trading to the Sei Network, expanding access to advanced derivatives infrastructure designed for execution certainty, capital efficiency, and deterministic risk management. According to the announcement shared with Finbold on January 27, the integration allows Gryps to deploy a fully managed perpetuals stack on Sei using Orbs’ Layer-3 infrastructure alongside Symmio’s smart contract system. The setup provides core components such as hedging, liquidation, oracle pricing, and professional trading interfaces, without requiring Gryps to build its own complex backend infrastructure. Bringing the…

Ether hovered near $2,900–$2,950 after a pullback from $3,300, as two analysts highlighted the zone as key support. One chart framed the move as a possible Wyckoff last point of support, while another flagged $3,300 and $3,600 as the next resistance levels. Wyckoff chart flags $ETH support test near $2,900 A chart shared on X by analyst Bitcoinsensus shows Ether trading near $2,920 and labels the recent pullback as a possible “last point of support” in a Wyckoff accumulation setup. The TradingView-style graphic marks prior Wyckoff events on the left side of the cycle, including a selling climax (SC), an…

Cathie Wood’s $ARK Invest has filed with U.S. regulators to launch two crypto index exchange-traded funds tied to the CoinDesk 20 index, marking the firm’s first push into broad crypto exposure beyond Bitcoin. Summary Wood’s latest move marks her firm’s first push into broad crypto exposure beyond Bitcoin. The proposed ETFs would track the daily performance of the CoinDesk 20 index. WisdomTree filed its registration for a CoinDesk 20 Fund in Delaware on September 22. According to a regulatory filing, the proposed ETFs would track the daily performance of the CoinDesk 20 index using regulated futures contracts rather than holding…

The Senate Agriculture Committee postponed the markup hearing for its crypto market structure bill, previously planned for Tuesday afternoon, by two days. The committee intended to let lawmakers debate amendments and vote on its version of the bill, which aims to define how the Commodity Futures Trading Commission can oversee crypto markets, but a once-in-a-decade winter storm struck the East Coast and much of the eastern half of the country over the weekend, canceling flights and changing the Senate’s schedule. The Senate had preemptively canceled votes planned for Monday afternoon on a funding package for the overall government. The U.S.…

Waves AI, an intelligent oracle platform that provides Web3 users with intelligence to optimize operations, improve decision-making, and scale applications faster, today announced a strategic partnership with Orexn, a decentralized cryptocurrency launchpad designed to offer a launch landscape for early-stage Web3 projects. This collaboration enabled Orexn to integrate Waves AI infrastructure into its Web3 launch engine platform, a tech upgrade that aims to create new opportunities for Web3 community engagement. Powered by its native OXN token, Orexn functions as a decentralized launchpad platform that focuses on enabling growth for early-stage Web3 projects. The platform provides tools to projects to connect…