Author: NBTC

Ghana’s central bank is moving to regulate virtual assets, adopting a policy designed to foster responsible crypto innovation while guaranteeing a level playing field for all financial institutions. Balancing Innovation and Competition The Bank of Ghana (BOG) has acknowledged that the country currently lacks a dedicated legal framework for regulating virtual asset service providers (VASPs). Its policy stance on virtual assets is described as “neither explicitly hostile nor explicitly friendly.” However, the central bank emphasised that recent developments, including the 2019 changes to Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards, mean that “virtual assets can no longer remain outside of the…

Bitcoin and Ethereum rose on Tuesday as gold’s price headed toward its biggest daily drop in over a decade, indicating renewed appetite for risk-taking among investors. Bitcoin was recently trading around $112,000, a 1% increase over the past day, according to CoinGecko. The largest crypto by market capitalization climbed as high as $114,000 earlier in the day. Ethereum, the second largest crypto by market value, was trading at about $4,000, a 0.7% gain over the same period of time. Ethereum traded as high as $4,100 earlier Tuesday. Tuesday’s crypto rise came as gold fell 5.5% to $4,118 per ounce, according…

Academy Award-winning actors Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine have partnered with AI audio company ElevenLabs to create digital replicas of their iconic voices, even as prominent Hollywood figures continue to denounce AI’s encroachment into their craft. McConaughey has been an “investor and early supporter” of the platform for years, and plans to use the voice cloning tech to launch a Spanish edition of his “Lyrics of Livin'” newsletter, according to a statement released Tuesday.  Caine has listed his voice on the company’s new Iconic Voice Marketplace, a platform that lets brands and producers pay to use AI versions of celebrity…

Matt Hougan, chief investment officer (CIO) of Bitwise, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency investment companies, said that Ethereum is experiencing a long-term “recovery story,” and that at the end of this process, the price could rise above $10,000 by 2030. Hougan argued that ETH has experienced short-term challenges but retains its long-term structural advantages: “Ethereum is poised to reach $5,000 by the end of this year and at least double by the end of the decade.” Overshadowed by the strong performance of rivals like Solana in recent months, Ethereum has struggled with low transaction volumes and weak market sentiment,…

Fed Board Member Chris Waller has proposed a new type of account that would provide direct access to the Fed’s payment system. This model, called the “limited-access master account,” or “skinny master account” for short, will give all legally compliant institutions, including fintech companies, stablecoin issuers, and payment institutions, direct access to the Fed’s payment infrastructure. The announcement was made at the Fed’s Payments Innovation Conference, as reported by crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett. Waller emphasized that this account type won’t include all the full-access “master account” services available to banks, such as borrowing authority from the Fed. However, he noted…

Japan is taking a crucial step toward strengthening cryptocurrency security. The Financial Services Agency (FSA) may soon require all crypto system operators to register with regulators. This expansion beyond exchange licensing represents a significant evolution in digital asset oversight. Why Are Crypto System Operators Facing New Requirements? According to Nikkei reports, Japan’s FSA considers implementing a prior notification system. This move targets companies operating cryptocurrency asset management and security systems. Currently, only exchanges need licenses, but the new rules would cover their technical partners too. The proposal reflects growing concerns about systemic risks in crypto infrastructure. By regulating crypto system…

Threshold Network, a cross‑chain bridge infrastructure hub that lets Bitcoin move between different blockchains, has upgraded its tBTC bridge to make it easier for large investors to use BTC in decentralized finance (DeFi). The update means that institutions such as ETFs, hedge funds, and custodians can now deploy their Bitcoin in DeFi to earn yield or provide liquidity without removing it from regulated storage, according to a press release shared with The Defiant. Until now, most institutional Bitcoin has been locked in vaults due to strict compliance and insurance rules, Threshold Network claims. The upgrade is expected to give tBTC…

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has opined that “incorruptibility” is the blockchain’s “most important” property. The billionaire prodigy has once again amplified the ZKSync project on social media, which serves as the scaling solution for the layer-1 network. ZK-rollups help to dramatically reduce gas fees and speed up transactions. The ZKSync Atlas upgrade, which was launched earlier this October, makes it possible to process up to 30,000 transactions per second (TPS). Earlier, Buterin opined that ZKsync had been doing “a lot of underrated and valuable work” within the ecosystem. Is Ethereum actually incorruptible? That said, JAN3 CEO Samson Mow, one of…

Feynman Point Asset Management, a newly independent investment firm focused on digital assets and frontier technologies, has officially announced it is spinning out from Republic, a New York-based investment firm known for its crypto initiatives. With this move, the firm establishes itself as a dedicated $300 million crypto hedge fund, led by Joe Naggar, a veteran of the traditional finance world known for having deep crypto roots. Feynman goes independent, but nothing will change about its focus Joe Naggar’s deep crypto roots are no joke. He was a former partner at Steven Tananbaum’s GoldenTree Asset Management for 16 years, where…

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says the company will not support any legislation that risks undoing the legal clarity XRP has already secured in the United States. Speaking in an interview with Crypto In America, Garlinghouse described XRP’s regulatory position as a milestone won through years of legal battles. Accordingly, he confirmed that Ripple will not allow it to be jeopardized. XRP Has Regulatory Clarity, and Ripple Wants the Entire Industry to Benefit Garlinghouse stated that XRP is now in a “unique position,” with a U.S. federal court having ruled that it is not a security. He noted that this clarity…