Author: NBTC

PNC Bank CEO Bill Demchak hit back against the growing push from crypto firms to offer interest on stablecoins, saying the tokens are trying to serve two roles at once — something traditional finance would not be allowed to do without strict oversight. “The fight right now in D.C. is over some terminology in the GENIUS Act that they’re trying to fix with the Clarity Act, with respect to whether rewards count as interest paid on stablecoins, which was forbidden in the GENIUS Act, as a practical matter,” Demchak said during the bank’s fourth quarter earnings call on Friday morning.…

India has announced its Union Budget 2026, ignoring calls for reform from industry experts to stick to its existing tax framework. According to the details shared by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the country did not deem it fit to make any revisions concerning taxes from crypto transactions. Since the beginning of the year, there have been numerous calls by participants in the crypto industry in India for a review of the current crypto tax framework. According to most people, the Budget 2026 provided an opportunity for the country to carry out a tax reform that would encourage local and international…

TL;DR On-chain privacy is a dominant 2026 narrative, with apps seeing over $530M in weekly volume. Hush Protocol launches a quantum-proof privacy layer on Solana that generates yield via staking. Its CEO cites institutional adoption as the next major catalyst for privacy innovation on Solana. Onchain privacy is rapidly establishing itself as one of the dominant crypto narratives in 2026. DeFi users are flocking to privacy-preserving applications in record volumes, with leading onchain shielding apps peaking at over $530 million in weekly volume during January. Launched by Zenrock, Hush Protocol becomes the newest application to join Solana’s flourishing privacy sector.…

Hex Trust, a digital asset custodian, said it expanded its partnership with the Flare blockchain to give institutional clients a route into $XRP $XRP$1.3640-focused decentralized finance (DeFi) while allowing them to keep control of their assets. The hook up positions Hex as a front door for funds and firms that want exposure to Flare-based strategies but have avoided them due to operational and compliance constraints. It allows clients to mint and redeem FXRP, a wrapped version of $XRP for the Flare network, alongside staking of the native FLR token. Staking and token wrapping typically require direct wallet connections and signing…

Saturday has brought another market-wide crash in the cryptocurrency space, and Ethereum is among the poorest performers over the past day (and week). In the past few hours alone, the largest altcoin slumped below $2,400 for the first time since July 2. This means that the asset has plummeted by over 10% in the past day, and it’s down by a whopping 18% weekly. Recall that $ETH had reclaimed the psychological $3,000 level on Wednesday when it tapped $3,070 for the first time in several days. This came before the first FOMC meeting for the year, but the asset began…

The US Supreme Court announced its next hearing will be on Tuesday, amid a critical decision expected regarding the tariffs signed by President Donald Trump. Whether the decision, which is being closely watched in global markets, will be announced in this session remains uncertain. As is customary, the court did not announce in advance which cases would have their verdicts published. It was stated that the verdicts could be announced when the judges took the stand at 10:00 a.m. Washington time. If a decision on the tariffs isn’t announced next week, the process could be extended by at least another…

Despite the rocky start crypto policymaking got off to this year, at the moment it does look like U.S. policymakers are making progress on the legislative and regulatory fronts. The White House is kicking off new discussions on stablecoin yield with representatives of the banking and crypto industries. You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. Click here to sign up for future editions. The narrative The Senate Agriculture Committee voted to advance market structure legislation, the White House is directly involved in resolving yield issues and the SEC and CFTC are…

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced it will support the planned network upgrade and hard fork process on the Zilliqa ($ZIL) network. According to the exchange’s statement, token deposits and withdrawals on the Zilliqa network will be temporarily suspended to protect user experience and ensure a smooth technical transition. Binance will suspend deposits and withdrawals on the Zilliqa ($ZIL) network on February 5, 2026, at approximately 12:00 PM. The network upgrade and hard fork are expected to take effect at block height 19,486,411. Binance stated that this block height will be reached around 1:00 PM. The exchange stated that the technical…

The crypto market has lost over $15 billion to hackers, with a fifth of it lost in bridge exploits, which Chainlink says highlights the need for its cross-chain solution. Cross-chain interoperability only works if security is built in, moving away from centralized single points of failure, the network says. The crypto market has continued to be a prime target for cyber criminals, who keep making away with billions of dollars every year. Cross-chain bridges are among the most vulnerable, and according to Chainlink, its cross-chain infrastructure is the ultimate solution. In 2025, hackers stole $2.87 billion in 147 hacks, a…

A governance delegation platform for Aave, the largest decentralized lending platform, with more than $29 billion in total value locked (TVL), has proposed pausing three underused Layer 2 deployments of Aave V3. In a Jan. 29 governance proposal that moved to a snapshot vote on Feb. 3, the Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) proposed that Aave freeze its V3 deployments on Ethereum L2s zkSync Era, Metis, and Soneium to cut costs. “Over time, it has become clear that a small subset of instances contributes very little user activity, TVL, and revenue, while still requiring a non-trivial amount of attention from service…