Author: NBTC

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse responded to a jab from Emin Gün Sirer, who claimed that banks are using Avalanche technology rather than Ripple’s solution. The lighthearted but pointed exchange unfolded on X after Sirer joked that banks are choosing Ripple. He quickly dismissed the statement as an April Fool’s joke and asserted that financial institutions actually rely on Avalanche instead. However, Garlinghouse did not ignore the claim. Despite many observers describing the remark as a playful joke, he responded quickly. Key Points Avalanche CEO Emin Gün Sirer dismisses claims that banks prefer Ripple, calling it an April Fool’s joke. He…

Brazil has blocked access to prediction market platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket, escalating a regulatory crackdown on products officials say operate like illegal betting. Finance Minister Dario Durigan said Friday that telecom regulator Anatel shut down 27 prediction market platforms after the government concluded they breached betting rules approved by Congress. The sites of Kalshi and Polymarket were offline in Brazil by early Friday afternoon. The move follows a new National Monetary Council rule limiting derivatives to economic and financial benchmarks such as price indexes, interest rates and exchange rates. Contracts tied to sports, online gaming, politics, elections, cultural events…

The $BNB ChainOsaka/Mendel upgrade is a hard fork activated on April 28, 2026 at 02:30 UTC that bundles nine BEP proposals into a single network update, shifting focus from raw block speed to execution consistency, stable finality, and better developer tooling. The Road That Led Here $BNB Chain has spent the past year aggressively cutting block times. Each hard fork moved the needle: Lorentz cut the block interval from roughly 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds Maxwell stabilized performance around 0.75 seconds Fermi pushed block times down to approximately 0.45 seconds Osaka/Mendel does not chase another speed record. Instead, it tightens…

Bitcoin is trading at $66,810 as of 10 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday, and across futures and options markets, traders are leaning defensive. The data tells a clear story: open interest is contracting, puts are moving faster than calls, and max pain levels on every major exchange sit well above where spot is trading. Key Takeaways: Bitcoin futures open interest across all exchanges fell to $46.94B, with Binance and CME leading at $8.09B and $7.24B. Put volume on Deribit outpaced calls 54.87% to 45.13% in 24 hours, signaling short-term defensive trader positioning. Deribit max pain for the April 24 expiry…

Decentralized finance (DeFi) was “bent, not broken” after a $292 million exploit on April 18 exposed systemic risks, according to investment bank Standard Chartered. The attack on KelpDAO spilled into $AAVE, the largest DeFi lender, after stolen tokens were used as collateral to borrow other assets. The episode sparked a sharp liquidity crunch, with the liquidity protocol seeing deposits fall by roughly 38% and active loans by 31%, in what the bank described as a bank-run dynamic. Despite the shock, tokenized real-world assets are still expected to reach a $2 trillion market cap by end-2028, driven by continued growth in…

Your AI just made several payments while you read that headline. You approved none of them. Visa processed none of them. And if the crypto industry’s biggest bulls are right, that’s not a bug — it’s the entire future of the internet economy. Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong thinks there will soon be more AI agents than humans making transactions on the internet. Binance founder Changpeng Zhao went further, predicting agents will make one million times more payments than people, all in crypto. The posts landed on the same day last week and lit up crypto X. The core argument is…

Col. Macgregor’s remarks emphasize Iran’s defensive capabilities and its intent to control war terms. The odds of a US-Iran ceasefire by April 7 are at 8% YES, down from 10% yesterday and 26% a week ago. Macgregor supports air and missile strikes over a costly ground invasion. The April 15 market is at 18% YES, showing skepticism about a near-term ceasefire. A notable shift occurred between April 15 and April 30, with a 20-point jump indicating traders expect a mid-April catalyst. Trading data shows $1,365,780 in USDC traded in the last 24 hours across all sub-markets, with a 4-point spike…

Prediction market traders on Kalshi pushed Kevin Warsh’s chances of becoming Federal Reserve chair sharply higher after the Department of Justice ended its inquiry into Jerome Powell. The new pricing gives Kevin an 86% chance of Senate approval by May 15. Traders also give him more than a 97% chance of confirmation by June 1. Before the Powell inquiry was dropped Monday morning, the same May 15 contract was sitting near 30%. That is a massive jump, and it came right after one political roadblock disappeared. Kalshi traders push Kevin’s odds higher after the DOJ clears a key Senate roadblock…

Ethereum has been the most favored blockchain in terms of transactions since its inception, taking the crown of the most used Layer 1 chain. According to the latest data from Chainspect, there is a massive disparity in network activity for the last seven days, where Solana has dominated Ethereum by recording a vastly high number of transactions. $SOL vs $ETH Weekly Transaction The sub-cent transaction costs and a vast retail ecosystem are some reasons that allowed Solana to process a staggering 637 million transactions over the last week. In comparison, Ethereum recorded just 15 million transactions during the same time…

Welcome to our institutional newsletter, Crypto Long & Short. This week: Jordan Brewer on the missing piece in token markets: institutional-grade investor relations. Martin Burgherr on crypto markets maturing, becoming more efficient and lower risk for institutions. Top headlines institutions should pay attention to by Francisco Rodrigues. Collector Crypt: revenue recovery meets token re-rating in Chart of the Week. -Alexandra Levis Expert Insights Guide, deliver, repeat: the hidden driver of token performance By Jordan Brewer, investment analyst, Runa Digital Assets In early March, just three months after a Solana Breakpoint mainstage appearance by Ranger Finance co-founder Fathur Rahman, and two…