Author: NBTC

Digital assets are moving quietly yet inexorably from niche experiment to structural financial layer, and 2026 may be the year the broader market finally notices. That’s the view from Fidelity Digital Assets, whose recent 2026 Look Ahead research report frames digital assets as undergoing the kind of fundamental transformation once seen in global trade, a point underscored by Fidelity VP of Research Chris Kuiper in a recent interview with CoinDesk “Digital assets are approaching their shipping container moment,” Kuiper told CoinDesk, an analogy he borrows from The Box, Mark Levinson’s book about how a simple standardized metal container revolutionized global…

Scammers are increasingly exploiting Arizona’s approximately 600 crypto ATMs to defraud consumers, particularly older adults, prompting Attorney General Kris Mayes to issue an urgent warning and launch new tools to help victims recover funds. Arizonans lost over $177 million to crypto ATM scams in 2024 alone, Mayes announced Monday, warning that anyone directing consumers to use crypto kiosks represents a “very, very high chance” of running a scam. “My message to Arizonans is this: be careful around the physical cryptocurrency ATMs we’re seeing pop up around the state,” Mayes said in a statement.  The office also launched a new…

A survey of senior crypto investors and executives suggests capital priorities are shifting away from decentralized finance (DeFi) and toward core infrastructure, as decision-makers focus on liquidity constraints and market plumbing. The findings come from a new report published by the digital asset conference CfC St. Moritz, based on responses from 242 attendees of its invitation-only event in January. Respondents included institutional investors, founders, C-suite executives, regulators and family office representatives. According to the survey, 85% of respondents selected infrastructure as their top funding priority, ahead of DeFi, compliance, cybersecurity and user experience. While expectations for revenue growth and innovation…

In a significant on-chain transaction that captured the attention of market analysts globally, Trend Research, a prominent entity under the venture capital giant LD Capital, executed a strategic sale of 30,000 Ethereum ($ETH), valued at approximately $70.18 million, on the Binance exchange. This pivotal move, first identified by the analytics platform Onchain Lens, was specifically conducted to repay a substantial loan, signaling a nuanced shift in risk management strategy within the institutional crypto sphere. The transaction provides a compelling case study in portfolio rebalancing, debt management, and the sophisticated financial engineering now commonplace among major crypto-native investment firms. Trend Research’s…

Xi Jinping wants China’s tech companies to stop tearing each other apart with endless price cuts. Platforms keep slashing costs to beat each other, and now regulators are getting involved. Beijing doesn’t want another year of businesses throwing subsidies at users just to win market share. The government is under pressure to stop this, especially with deflation hanging over the economy and prices falling for more than three years straight. The main watchdog, SAMR, is picking off companies one by one. First, it went after food delivery services. Then this week, it announced an investigation into China’s biggest travel booking…

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) warned Monday that those involved in alleged secret payments from a UAE investor could face jail time, describing the situation as “potentially criminal conduct” tied to the transfer of sensitive defense technology following a deal involving Trump-linked crypto firm World Liberty Financial. “A UAE investor secretly gave Trump $187 million and his top Middle East envoy $31 million. And then Trump gave that investor access to sensitive defense technology that broke decades of national security precedent,” Murphy tweeted. “Brazen, open corruption. And we shouldn’t pretend it’s normal.” A UAE investor secretly gave Trump $187 million and…

Fireblocks, an institutional-grade crypto infrastructure company, announced on Wednesday that it will integrate Stacks, a decentralized finance (DeFi) layer for the Bitcoin protocol, to give institutional clients access to lending and yield-bearing opportunities. The integration bypasses the 10-minute Bitcoin block time by leveraging the Stacks blockchain, which has an average block time of about 29 seconds, a Stacks spokesperson told Cointelegraph. All Stacks transactions settle to the Bitcoin ledger for finality. Removing the 10-minute $BTC block time barrier resolves one of the most common objections for financial institutions looking to use $BTC-based DeFi applications, the Stacks spokesperson said. The Bitcoin…

China’s tech stocks are ripping higher while the rest of the world tries to figure out what’s happening. Been a year since DeepSeek dropped its shock AI model, China is flying into 2026 with a fresh round of tech milestones and a market that doesn’t care how weak the economy looks. A Nasdaq-style index of local Chinese tech stocks has jumped nearly 13% just this month. A second gauge tracking Hong Kong-listed Chinese tech firms is up 6%. Both are leaving the Nasdaq 100 behind. And this is happening while the economy is stuck. Housing is still a disaster, and…

The SEC’s ongoing dispute with Ripple and the $XRP token has resurfaced after a well-known U.S. securities attorney said the case should never have been brought. As Round 2 of America’s Epstein-era scandals begins to blow up in Washington, crypto is getting dragged into the same conflagration. Veteran securities lawyer James Murphy, known online as MetaLawMan, challenged the very foundation of the SEC’s case, stating that most legal professionals with crypto expertise never believed $XRP qualified as a security in the first place. For Murphy, the enforcement action under Jay Clayton’s leadership was both unfounded and unjustified. That sentence got…

Table of Contents What Does the Integration Actually Include?Why Does This Matter for satUSD?How Does River’s Chain Abstraction Work?What’s River’s Broader Strategy?What Are the Risks?Frequently Asked Questions River today announced, via its official X account, that it has integrated with Curve Finance, connecting its chain-abstracted stablecoin satUSD to one of DeFi’s most liquid trading venues. The partnership introduces a crvUSD-satUSD stable pool and enables 1:1 swaps between the two stablecoins through River’s swap module. The move comes weeks after River closed a $12M strategic funding round announced January 23, with participation from TRON DAO, Justin Sun, Arthur Hayes’ Maelstrom Fund,…