Author: NBTC

The US crypto industry believed it stood on the precipice of securing the regulatory legitimacy it has pursued for a decade, but the political ground has suddenly shifted beneath it. On Jan. 14, Sen. Tim Scott, the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, postponed a vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. This delay effectively halted Washington’s most advanced attempt yet to establish comprehensive “rules of the road” for the $3 trillion digital asset market. While Chair Scott characterized the postponement as a tactical pause to keep stakeholders “at the table working in good faith,” the sudden brake-pumping reveals…

Alchemy Pay, the Singapore-founded fiat-crypto payment gateway, has added Dash’s native token $DASH to its global fiat on-ramp, the companies announced today. The integration means users will now be able to buy $DASH directly with local fiat payment methods supported by Alchemy Pay’s network, lowering a key barrier for people who want to use Dash as everyday digital cash. The move leverages Alchemy Pay’s wide-reaching payment infrastructure: the company’s on-ramp supports purchases across 173 countries and connects with more than 300 payment channels and 50+ fiat currencies, from global card networks like Visa and Mastercard to Apple Pay, Google Pay,…

Vault curators are reaching peak levels of activity, becoming a key growth driver for DeFi. Curators have been growing their footprint, expanding the value locked in the Morpho protocol. Vault curators are becoming a notable element in the growth of DeFi. The rise of top curators boosted the value locked on Morpho, leading to a greater expansion of DeFi lending. As Cryptopolitan reported earlier, risk curators or vault curators took off in 2025, but faced stress tests for some of the vaults. Vault curators had to be careful about resource utilization and the risks of their high-yield vaults. Steakhouse Finance…

New research suggests Venezuela has become increasingly dependent on crypto as the United States and its allies escalate a push for regime change in the isolated nation. Nearly a decade of economic isolation, aggressive international sanctions, and economic collapse have made crypto tokens—particulary, Tether’s USDT stablecoin—central to the everyday life of Venezuelans, according to a new report from TRM Labs. The report also underscores how Venezuela’s largely unregulated crypto economy has potentially aided, or could aid, the nation in circumventing international sanctions.  “You can absolutely say that years of sanctions and loss of correspondent banking helped push both the…

The Department of Justice charged a Venezuelan national this week for allegedly using crypto exchanges in a $1 billion money laundering scheme. According to the complaint, the funds moved in and out of the United States. Outbound destinations included “high-risk” jurisdictions such as Colombia, China, Panama, and Mexico. Prosecutors Detail Multi-Step Crypto Fund Routing According to court records, 59-year-old Jorge Figueira of Venezuela is accused of using multiple bank accounts, cryptocurrency exchange accounts, private crypto wallets, and shell companies to move and launder illicit funds across borders. “By enlisting subordinates and conducting scores of transfers, Figueira sought to conceal the…

Visa is integrating stablecoin infrastructure from BVNK into its Visa Direct platform, expanding how its $1.7 trillion real-time payments network can move money globally. The partnership, announced Wednesday, allows businesses in select markets to pre-fund payments in stablecoins and send payouts directly to recipients’ digital wallets. Visa’s Direct network is widely used by businesses and platforms to send fast payments to individuals — think payroll, gig economy wages, or cross-border remittances. By using stablecoins, which are designed to maintain a fixed value and settle instantly, Visa aims to offer faster access to funds, especially outside of banking hours. “Stablecoins are…

Stakely, a popular blockchain infrastructure platform, has collaborated with FastLane, a blockchain-centered liquid staking entity. The partnership attempts to deliver stakers a relatively effective way to get more yield on the Monad blockchain with $shMON. This indicates the likely drawbacks of conventional staking methods. As Stakely revealed in its official X post, the integration of the liquidity staking capabilities of FastLane significantly boosts the user experience. Hence, this permits consumers to easily unlock the complete potential of the $MON tokens in their possession. 📢 Stakely x @0xFastLaneAt Stakely, we’re collaborating with FastLane to boost liquid staking on Monad with $shMON,…

Over the last month, shares of Jack Mallers’ Tether-supported public company Twenty One have lost a quarter of their value. Despite Mallers’ insistence that he’s different from all the other bitcoin (BTC) industry executives, his stock price has the same story as everyone else. Over the same time period, Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest BTC treasury company, has declined by an identical 25%. Peers in the BTC treasury sector are essentially in line with Saylor. Vivek Ramaswamy’s Strive Asset Management is down 31%, David Bailey’s Nakamoto is down 36%, Adam Back’s H100 Group is down 31%, Xin Jin’s Cango…

Democrats are turning their fire on the Securities and Exchange Commission after the agency quietly dropped its long-running lawsuit against Ripple and other companies. They argue that a retreat from crypto enforcement threatens investor protection and the credibility of U.S. markets. A sharply worded letter In a scathing letter to SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins, Democratic lawmakers accuse the Commission of abandoning meritorious crypto cases at precisely the moment when political pressure from the industry has intensified. The Ripple lawsuit, once emblematic of the SEC’s aggressive “regulation by enforcement” approach under former leadership, has become a symbol of what critics…

Spanish banking giant Bankinter has taken a minority stake in crypto exchange Bit2Me, joining a 30 million euro ($33 million) funding round involving Tether in August 2025. The investment adds another traditional bank to Bit2Me’s growing list of backers, which already includes major local financial institutions including BBVA, Unicaja and Cecabank. Bit2Me, headquartered in Madrid, is among the first firms registered under the EU’s new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, allowing it to operate across the entire European bloc. The company has positioned itself as a business-to-business gateway for banks seeking compliant access to crypto markets. Bankinter said in a…