Author: NBTC

According to CryptoRank’s market cap fluctuation data, Ethereum Layer 2 tokens experienced widespread double-digit declines over the past month. MEGA leads the downturn at -34.8%, followed by ZK at -27.3%, STRK at -22%, and OP at -19.5%. Those are just the tokens that dropped the most. Nearly all major Ethereum L2 governance tokens took a hit over the last month, even though the overall scaling ecosystem kept growing. Normally, investors expect that more users translate to more activity, and more activity would push token prices up. Transaction counts are up, new apps keep launching, TVL is holding steady, and institutions…

Trump brought in more than $1.4 billion from crypto ventures linked to his family during 2025, but his latest wealth report shows a far bigger sum parked in stocks and bonds. While Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump promoted digital asset projects to investors, many retail buyers later took painful losses. Meanwhile, the president’s money managers placed a large part of his growing fortune in markets that are usually less volatile than crypto. The report filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics lists income from World Liberty Financial and the Trump meme coin. It also puts Trump’s stock…

The Cardano community is marking 6 years since the historic Shelley upgrade that brought staking to the network. Shelley is the successor to the Byron era, in which the Cardano mainnet was launched in September 2017 along with the $ADA cryptocurrency. The Shelley era comprised the critical initial steps in Cardano’s journey to optimize decentralization. The Cardano community X account shared this milestone in a recent post, highlighting key statistics that define the network and the features introduced by the Shelley upgrade. “Byron hard forked into Shelley. Stake pools, decentralised block production and staking rewards became a thing. The chain…

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is drawing a clear line in the sand for prediction market firms: cut corners on event contract certifications, and face the consequences. The agency issued a formal advisory warning that CFTC prediction markets regulation is not a process to be rushed — and this is already the second time in recent months it has had to say so. Key takeaways The CFTC issued an advisory warning prediction market firms against submitting overly broad, template-style event contract certifications — the second such warning in recent months. Designated contract markets that self-certify contracts without detailed terms,…

Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, plans to build cryptocurrency trading infrastructure and launch a digital depository by Dec. 1 as Russia moves to bring crypto trading, custody and settlement into its regulated financial system. The depository, according to Interfax, will record clients’ ownership of cryptocurrency and process most transactions outside the underlying blockchain. Sberbank will operate active wallets for client-initiated deposits, withdrawals and transfers. The plan follows the Federation Council’s approval of a law regulating cryptocurrency trading through licensed brokers, exchanges, asset managers and depositories. The framework is set to take effect Sept. 1, though rules requiring transactions to pass through…

Ethereum’s $ETH token is shifting its usage, moving from exchange-based speculation to on-chain activity. Whale accumulation and global demand expand, while exchange reserves are still contracting. Ethereum is showing a shift in demand for $ETH, from US-based trading and speculation to growing global demand and on-chain usage. The signal of decreased US demand is the Coinbase premium index, which has been mostly negative throughout 2026. $ETH open interest is also almost flat at $11.37B, showing weaker demand for speculative trading. The Coinbase premium for $ETH remained negative for most of 2026, showing weakened US demand and rising global accumulation from…

Bitcoin has entered a high-risk week as fresh inflation data and renewed Federal Reserve rate concerns have intensified pressure on crypto markets. According to Reuters, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller warned that the U.S. central bank could consider raising interest rates if inflation continues to remain above its 2% target, placing investors on alert before this week’s key economic releases. His comments come as traders prepare for the June Consumer Price Index (CPI) report due on July 14, followed by the Producer Price Index (PPI) data on July 15. Bitcoin has already reacted to rising macro uncertainty. The cryptocurrency slipped…

Shiba Inu saw one of its biggest 2026 price performances this week after it registered a daily price surge of over 35%, drawing attention from market analysts. However, the same was not true for its layer 2 network, Shibarium, which saw its trading activity consistently move near zero all week. Shibarium DEX volume drops to $72 After a week of extremely slow onchain performances across the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem on the Shibarium network, the latest data provided by DeFiLlama shows a substantial drop in Shibarium’s DEX volume. Per the data, Shibarium has witnessed a massive 95% decline in its…

Europe’s crypto market has moved beyond the race to secure a Markets in Crypto-Assets licence. The next test is whether authorised firms can afford the staff, capital and controls required to keep operating under the European Union’s full rulebook. The cost pressure may push smaller crypto companies towards mergers, sales or bank partnerships. The same pattern could develop in the U.K., where the Financial Conduct Authority will open its authorisation gateway on September 30, 2026. MiCA moves Europe from licensing to long-term compliance The MiCA transition ended across the EU on July 1, 2026. The European Securities and Markets Authority…

For months, Hong Kong’s compliant crypto trading environment has largely kept retail brokerage access under tight wraps. That changed on Friday—at least for a subset of the market—when Futu Securities, the city’s largest retail brokerage, rolled out $BNB order-book trading pairs. As the original report noted, the service is available only to Hong Kong-qualified Professional Investors, a designation that typically requires a portfolio of at least HK$8 million. Futu itself stated it is the first licensed brokerage in Hong Kong to offer real-time $BNB trading through an order book. The move lands at a moment when $BNB Chain continues to…