Author: NBTC

Binance sharpens its South Korea strategy through Gopax involvement. GoFi developments signal deeper product expansion in the region. Regulation and local partnerships shape exchange competition. Binance is intensifying its push into South Korea by strengthening its position around local exchange Gopax and the GoFi ecosystem. The move signals a calculated effort to gain a stronger footing in one of Asia’s most tightly regulated yet highly active crypto markets. This is happening at a time when crypto regulatory trends are becoming increasingly stringent in Asia, and exchanges are moving into the region because they notice growing trends. One country that stands…

SpoonOS has launched a Web3 Skills marketplace alongside two community-facing initiatives: a Skill capture community campaign and a builders campaign featuring a US $5,000 rewards pool. The marketplace focuses on helping developers create, share, and reuse modular agent capabilities, with rewards for participation including $NFT badges on Neo X and potential $GAS-based rewards for standout contributors. Designed to support composable AI agent development, the marketplace enables transparent attribution and community-driven ratings and reviews based on real-world usage. Developers can publish standalone “Skills” representing discrete capabilities – such as wallet operations or on-chain data queries – that can be reused and…

Ripple has secured another important legal victory in the United States, after a federal appeals court officially dismissed a long-running $XRP investor lawsuit. On January 27, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court ruling in Sostack v. Ripple Labs, shutting down class-action claims that alleged $XRP was sold as an unregistered security. Case Dismissed for Being Filed Too Late The court ruled that the lawsuit was time-barred under the Securities Act of 1933. Judges said $XRP was offered to the public as early as 2013, which started the legal clock. Under the…

Ferrari has officially entered the digital asset era. The iconic luxury automaker now accepts Bitcoin and select cryptocurrencies as payment methods in the United States and Europe. This move places Ferrari among a growing list of global brands embracing digital finance. It also signals a major shift in how high-value luxury purchases evolve in a digital economy. The decision reflects changing customer preferences and rising crypto adoption among high-net-worth individuals. Ferrari customers increasingly operate in tech, finance, and digital asset ecosystems. The brand recognized this shift and acted decisively to stay aligned with modern wealth trends. Ferrari crypto payments now…

Kaledora Fontana Kiernan-Lin is putting a timeline on her bold prediction: the global contract-for-difference (CFD) broker market faces major disruption from decentralized finance within five years. The co-founder and CEO of Ostium, a blockchain-based perpetual swaps platform, recently secured $20 million in Series A funding from General Catalyst and Jump Crypto to back that thesis. In an interview with FinanceMagnates.com, Kiernan-Lin laid out why she believes retail foreign exchange and commodities traders will abandon traditional CFD brokers for on-chain alternatives that offer transparent pricing and self-custody of funds. “The ‘perpification’ of markets – where every asset becomes a liquid, tradeable…

BlackRock (BLK), the world’s largest asset manager, highlighted cryptocurrency and tokenized assets as important investment themes in a new report exploring the trends it says are shaping markets this year. Though artificial intelligence and energy infrastructure take center stage, crypto still earns attention, with bitcoin BTC$90,226.42, ether ETH$3,005.51 and stablecoins all mentioned in the 2026 Thematic Outlook. The team, led by Jay Jacobs, the company’s head of U.S. equity exchange-traded funds (ETFs), included crypto among a broader list of “themes driving markets in unprecedented ways.” Though brief, mentions of tokenization and digital assets carry weight coming from a firm managing…

US lawmakers are expected to return to Capitol Hill on Wednesday after inclement weather delayed committee meetings and votes, with attention turning to how senators will handle proposed amendments to a long-awaited crypto market structure bill. On Thursday, senators on the Senate Agriculture Committee are scheduled to meet for a markup on the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act (DCIA), a bill to establish a digital asset market structure framework. The markup is one of the first attempts by the chamber to advance market structure legislation amid the Senate Banking Committee postponing its markup after Coinbase pulled its support for the bill.…

Binance Futures announced it will add two new USDⓈ-margin perpetual futures contracts to its platform to expand trading options and improve user experience. According to the announcement, the XPTUSDT and XPDUSDT perpetual contracts will be gradually launched on January 30, 2026. The XPTUSDT contract will be available to users at 13:00, and the XPDUSDT contract at 13:15. Both contracts will offer leverage of up to 100x. The new contracts will have precious metals as underlying assets. XPTUSDT will be priced in US dollars and represent 1 troy ounce of platinum, while XPDUSDT will represent 1 troy ounce of palladium, also…

A decade ago, the crypto market was straightforward: When bitcoin $BTC$76,540.50 surged, some 500 or more alternative cryptocurrencies followed suit; when it plunged, the entire market crashed. Portfolios spread across “diverse tokens” with unique use cases looked diversified on paper, but cratered during the bitcoin slides. Fast forward to 2026, and very little has changed, even though the number of altcoins has increased to several thousand. Despite institutions supposedly painting crypto as a multifaceted asset class akin to stocks, with each project boasting distinct investment appeal, the reality is grim. The market’s still a one-trick pony, following $BTC up and…

Finst, a Netherlands-based regulated crypto exchange, announced an €8 million Series A round led by Endeit Capital, lifting its total funding to €15 million. The round attracted continued support from existing investors, including Eelko van Kooten, founder of Spinnin’ Records, and Mark Fransen, co-founder of DEGIRO. The company will direct the new capital toward European expansion, enhanced staking products, expanded asset selection, new platform features, and additional offerings for retail and professional users. “Our mission has been clear from day one: to make crypto investing safer, fairer and radically more transparent,” Finst co-founder Julien Vallet said. “With this Series A…