Author: NBTC

China Renaissance, once hailed as China’s “M&A King,” is reshaping its future around digital assets. The boutique investment bank approved a $200 million allocation to Web3 in 2025. That includes $100 million invested in BNB Chain’s native token, BNB, through a strategic deal with YZi Labs, formerly Binance Labs. From M&A Legacy to Digital Assets The decision marks a turning point for the firm, which built its reputation brokering China’s landmark internet mergers. From the tie-up of ride-hailing giants Didi and Kuaidi to the merger of Meituan and Dianping, the firm thrived in an era of hyper-growth. Yet as China’s…

The cryptocurrency world is buzzing with an exciting development from Cango, a company originally known for its auto trading services. In a truly remarkable turn of events, Cango announced an astounding performance in the second quarter, primarily driven by its robust Cango BTC mining operations. The company successfully mined a significant 1,404 Bitcoin (BTC) during this period. This achievement isn’t just a number; it represents a profound strategic shift. What’s even more striking is that these mining activities accounted for a staggering 98% of Cango’s total revenue, which reached an impressive $140 million for the quarter. This highlights a powerful…

Decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked (TVL) has surged 41% so far in the third quarter of 2025, surpassing $160 billion for the first time since May 2022. DeFi TVL Ethereum and Solana, seen as key indicators of DeFi activity, led the growth. Ethereum’s TVL jumped 50% from $54 billion in July to $96.5 billion today, while Solana’s rose about 30%, from $10 billion to $13 billion over the same period, per DeFiLlama. The broader DeFi ecosystem’s growth reflects increased activity in lending, borrowing, and decentralized exchange (DEX) trading. Moreover, there has been renewed investor interest following regulatory clarity from…

Ethereum is trading near $4,600, stabilizing after a volatile August that saw repeated rejections near $4,800. The market has been buoyed by large-scale whale accumulation and fresh on-chain inflows, but technical resistance continues to cap rallies. Spot data shows over $427 million in ETH purchased by Bitmine, marking one of the largest single-day whale acquisitions in months. Combined with positive net flows on August 27, sentiment has improved even as broader crypto markets remain cautious heading into September. The question now is whether Ethereum price action can build enough momentum to retest $4,800 and break into the higher range near…

Russia’s finance ministry is suggesting easing the requirements for entering the country’s restricted and strictly controlled cryptocurrency market. The proposal to lower the thresholds for granting access to digital assets comes as the country fell to number 10 among crypto adopters. Minfin urges letting more Russians try crypto The Russian Ministry of Finance (Minfin) believes it is possible to relax requirements for obtaining the status of “highly qualified” investor, which is necessary to participate in the state-authorized market for crypto assets. In March of this year, the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) proposed to allow this category to buy and…

Kraken acquired Breakout, a prop crypto trading firm. It plans to allow a funded trading plan, where users can apply to invest in crypto using $200,000 in credit. The exchange would retain around 20% of the ensuing gains. Still, Kraken’s community has been a little skeptical, claiming that this acquisition doesn’t have a lot of synergy with its other offerings. Instead, this deal may be a way to lay the groundwork for a future IPO. Kraken’s Breakout Deal Kraken has been looking at a few new expansions recently, as the popular CEX has shown an interest in tokenizing US stocks…

Mantle 2.0, which aims to become the institutional “liquidity chain” for tokenized real-world assets, is championing a new business model that may accelerate the mutually beneficial convergence between the industry’s centralized and decentralized participants. Mantle Network was initially launched as an Ethereum layer-2 (L2) scaling solution in 2021 under BitDAO, as the first L2 network launched by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). In July 2023, BitDAO and Mantle Network consolidated into the Mantle brand and the Mantle (MNT) token. The project is now entering a “new phase in its lifecycle,” dubbed Mantle 2.0. It is marked by Bybit executives being…

With the broad cryptocurrency market showing signs of a brief rebound, whales appear to be exiting the market regardless. On August 27, on-chain monitoring company Whale Alert reported a massive Ethereum deposit in a mysterious move that appears to be an attempt to sell. The major ETH transfer, which happened in a matter of minutes, saw a total of 33,622 ETH flow into the U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase. Although the transfers were made in two separate transactions, the total ETH moved in both transactions was worth over $213 million, per data provided by the source. Following the nature of both…

A significant development is shaking up the investment world: BlockSpaceForce and Mainnet Capital have officially launched a groundbreaking crypto stock hedge fund. This new Singapore-based initiative aims to secure an impressive $100 million in assets under management (AUM), signaling a robust interest in the evolving digital asset landscape. This fund represents a unique blend of traditional stock market strategies with the dynamic potential of the cryptocurrency sector. What Exactly is This Crypto Stock Hedge Fund, and Why is it Important? This innovative crypto stock hedge fund isn’t just another crypto fund. Instead of directly holding digital currencies, it strategically invests…

Onchain AI agents are edging out of the lab. Lit Protocol’s agent stack, Vincent, now gives developers a way to ship non-custodial automation that actually touches money, but under explicit, enforceable limits set by users and app authors. An “early access” launch just went live, Blockworks has learned exclusively. Lit frames the core model simply: policies (guardrails) and abilities (discrete actions like swap/borrow/bridge) that are bound together at deploy time and enforced at runtime, according to co-founder David Sneider. “Vincent Policies (the guardrails and controls) are created and exposed by Vincent application developers based on any given use case,” Sneider…