Author: NBTC

US prosecutors will not retry their insider trading case against a former manager at nonfungible token platform OpenSea after a federal appeals court overturned the convictions in July. On Wednesday, prosecutors told a Manhattan federal court that they entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with Nathaniel Chastain and will dismiss their case after the agreement ends in a month. In a letter, Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton said the decision was made based on Chastain already serving parts of his initial sentence, including three months behind bars, and that he agreed not to contest the forfeiture of 15.98 Ether (ETH)…

Optiview, a Web3 asset tracking platform that allows users to simplify multichain portfolio management, today announced a strategic partnership with Funton.AI, a modular multigame platform that allows users to enjoy and empower themselves through Web3 games. By integrating Optiview’s on-chain asset tracking and AI market analytics technology into its gaming platform, Funton aims to improve game players’ experience and help develop the onboarding of future Web3 games. Funton.AI is a decentralized gaming ecosystem driven by artificial intelligence, enabling people to access various casual mobile games. Built on the TON blockchain, Funton allows users to play a wide variety of games…

Trading 212, a disruptor in Europe’s retail brokerage sector, sold cryptocurrency-linked products in the United Kingdom without the proper authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which requires separate approval for offering such “high-risk investment products.” Offering Crypto Products without Permission According to a Financial Times report, the retail brokerage platform allowed traders on its platform to purchase crypto exchange-traded notes (ETNs) from October 2025, right after the UK regulator overturned its blanket ban on such products, which was put in place in 2021. ETNs track the value of the underlying asset, cryptocurrency in this case, but unlike popular exchange-traded…

WalletConnect, a blockchain connectivity infrastructure provider, has integrated the TRON network to expand access to payments and decentralized applications. The move connects the TRON ecosystem to more than 600 wallets and over 70,000 decentralized applications already supported by WalletConnect, strengthening the role of stablecoins in global payment flows. TRON is a high-throughput public blockchain focused on payments and decentralized apps. The network is governed by TRON DAO, a community-led organization that oversees protocol development and ecosystem growth. Through the integration, users can transfer TRC-20 tokens from any compatible wallet and access TRON-based DeFi, NFT, and GameFi applications via WalletConnect on…

Global digital assets could surge into a $28 trillion market by 2030, driven by accelerating blockchain adoption, bitcoin dominance, and expanding smart contract platforms, according to projections from Ark Investment Management. The Numbers Are Staggering: Ark Projects Digital Assets Scaling to $28 Trillion by 2030 Global digital asset markets appear set for powerful, sustained growth as blockchain adoption gains momentum worldwide. That bullish outlook is outlined by Ark Investment Management in its Big Ideas 2026 report released this week, which forecasts sweeping expansion across cryptocurrencies and smart contract platforms over the next decade. “Digital assets could reach $28 trillion in…

The American Bankers Association (ABA) has made cracking down on stablecoin yield a top priority for 2026, amid its ongoing debate with US lawmakers that it will hurt the banking industry’s competitiveness. The ABA said on Tuesday that one of several priorities it has this year is to “stop payment stablecoins from becoming deposit substitutes that slash community bank lending by prohibiting paying interest, yield or rewards regardless of the platform.” Stablecoin oversight topped a list of five priorities, which also included fighting financial fraud, stopping arbitrary interest rate caps, and focusing on indexing and mission-driven banks. ABA CEO and…

KuCoin has appointed former London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) executive Sabina Liu to lead its European business, tasking her with steering the exchange’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) expansion from Vienna after securing a crypto asset service provider license in Austria. Liu, who will serve as managing director of KuCoin EU, previously ran KuCoin’s institutional business and also spent more than a decade at the LSEG working with global investment banks and cross-border trading clients, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph. MiCA “guardrails” over growth at all costs Liu told Cointelegraph that securing a MiCA license was a…

Pharos has officially stated that it has a number of high-profile security partners in anticipation of its upcoming mainnet launch. This move is an indication that institutional-grade security and operational resilience are central to Pharos, making it a finance prepared Layer 1, which can be used in RealFi applications. Through partnership with well-known international cloud providers and leading companies in Web3 security, Pharos will develop a complex security system at infrastructure, audit, and monitoring levels, as well as incident response. Pharos is proud to announce key security partners ahead of the Mainnet launch!🔐 @alibaba_cloud and @awscloud provide enterprise-grade cloud security…

The U.S. Department of Justice highlighted three high-profile fraud cases where cryptocurrency played a material role in its 2025 Year in Review, released Thursday, noting heightened enforcement as digital assets become embedded in traditional fraud schemes. The cases emerged from a record-breaking year where prosecutors charged 265 defendants with an aggregate intended fraud loss exceeding $16 billion, more than double last year’s total, according to the DOJ’s Criminal Division Fraud Section report. America First means zero tolerance for fraud! The Fraud Section’s 2025 Year in Review details aggressive actions @TheJusticeDept has taken against fraud at every level. https://t.co/N5S1r4VjoG — Criminal…

Circle launched StableFX, an initiative to transform the $10 trillion daily foreign exchange (FX) market by enabling 24/7 on-chain currency conversion using stablecoins. The platform, unveiled in November 2025 on Circle’s Arc blockchain, promises to eliminate long-standing FX bottlenecks, such as prefunding requirements, delayed settlement, and fragmented trading venues. Circle Launches StableFX to Modernize Global FX Circle’s StableFX allows institutions to trade stablecoin pairs like $USDC/EURC via Request-for-Quote (RFQ) execution from multiple liquidity providers. FX has long been constrained by prefunding, cut-off times, and fragmented venues.StableFX brings currency conversion onchain with familiar RFQ execution and always-on settlement using stablecoins.In 2025,…