Author: NBTC

A Washington man was convicted in a federal jury trial this week for taking tens of millions of dollars from the company he worked for—and losing nearly all of it in a botched crypto play.  Nevin Shetty, 41, was found guilty Thursday on four counts of wire fraud for taking and misusing some $35 million worth of funds from a private software company where he worked as CFO.  Though Shetty himself drafted a conservative investment policy for the startup—which called for its money to be invested only in FDIC-insured treasury and bank accounts—the executive soon secretly moved tens of millions…

HashKey Holdings’ shares fell about 5% in their Hong Kong trading debut, a muted reception that underscores investor caution toward the exchange’s business model despite its dominant position in the city’s regulated crypto market. The stock opened below its IPO price and slid to around HK$6.34 by mid-morning. The decline followed the release of prospectus disclosures earlier in December, showing heavy losses but rapid growth in users and activity. The IPO comes at a time when bitcoin has pulled back from its all-time high earlier this year, to trade around $87,000, taking down the valuation of most crypto-linked stocks globally.…

SDEX jumped more than 160% after Smardex announced its shift to the unified protocol, which merges a DEX, lending market and perpetual-style trading into a single smart contract and liquidity pool. A Unified Architecture for Capital Efficiency The native token of the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Smardex (SDEX) surged by over 160% on Dec. 17, following the announcement of its transition to a unified protocol that integrates a decentralized exchange (DEX), a lending market, and a perpetual-style trading system into a single smart contract. Market data shows the token rallied from approximately $0.002 to a brief peak above $0.008 before…

Binance has announced it will support the planned network upgrade on the Terra Classic (LUNC) network. According to the exchange’s official statement, token deposits and withdrawals on the Terra Classic network will be temporarily suspended to maintain the best user experience and ensure a smooth technical process. The statement indicated that deposit and withdrawal transactions on the LUNC network would cease on December 18, 2025, at approximately 5:10 PM. The network upgrade is expected to take place at block height 26,479,000, which is approximately at 6:10 PM on the same day. Binance emphasized that all technical requirements will be handled…

Within the Startale ecosystem, startale usd offers users a dollar-linked digital asset that underpins payments, savings, and liquidity incentives across the app. What is Startale USD (USDSC)? How to obtain and use Startale USD Reserves, transparency and dollar equivalence Where Startale USD can be used How the Earn Vault works Understanding STAR Points Providing liquidity and earning STAR Points Number of positions and minimum liquidity How STAR Points from liquidity are calculated Withdrawals and the LIFO method Liquidity pool fees and stability Support and additional questions What is Startale USD (USDSC)? Startale USD (USDSC) is a fully backed U.S. dollar…

JustLend DAO has reached a major milestone on the TRON blockchain. The platform has crossed $6.47 billion in total value locked while serving over 480,000 users. This growth highlights rising confidence in decentralized finance applications built on TRON. Market participants now watch JustLend DAO closely as adoption continues to expand. The surge in JustLend DAO TVL reflects growing interest in decentralized lending services. Users increasingly seek alternatives to centralized financial systems. JustLend DAO offers transparent, on chain lending and borrowing without intermediaries. These features attract both retail users and large liquidity providers. This milestone arrives during a broader recovery phase…

Publicly traded Bitcoin treasury and mining company American Bitcoin’s stock is on the rise Friday—despite other major miners taking a hit.  The Nasdaq-listed firm, which trades under the ABTC ticker and is fronted by President Donald Trump’s sons, dropped Friday morning New York time to as low as $4.50 before shooting upwards to its most recent level of $4.83. That’s a roughly 2% rise over the past day, according to Yahoo Finance data. Over the last five days, ABTC is up about 4%. American Bitcoin on Friday posted third-quarter profits and said revenue more than doubled from the year-earlier period…

Binance continues to periodically review trading pairs to ensure user security and maintain high trading quality in the spot market. As a result of the latest review, and taking into account various criteria such as liquidity and trading volume, it was decided to remove certain spot trading pairs from the platform. According to the official statement from the exchange, trading will be suspended for a total of eight spot trading pairs as of 06:00 on December 19, 2025. The pairs to be discontinued are: AI/FDUSD, BICO/BTC, DOLO/BNB, MITO/BNB, MITO/FDUSD, MOVE/BTC, NEWT/BNB, and OM/BTC. Binance emphasized that the delisting of spot…

JPMorgan recently issued $50 million in US commercial paper for Galaxy Digital on Solana, with Coinbase and Franklin Templeton as buyers. The bank created an on-chain USCP token, settling both issuance and redemption cash flows in USDC rather than bank wires. Both issuance and servicing of the deal ran entirely on blockchain rails. As a template, JPMorgan intends to extend to more issuers, investors, and security types in 2026.The announcement follows a pattern. Institutional on-chain issuance headlines recur every few months, such as Siemens’ €300 million digital bond, Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon’s tokenized money market funds, and BlackRock’s BUIDL…

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Margaux Nijkerk, a reporter at CoinDesk. In this issue: New React bug that can drain all your tokens is impacting ‘thousands’ of websites Ripple Expands $1.3B RLUSD Stablecoin to Ethereum L2s via Wormhole in Multichain Push Aave DAO Pushes Back as Interface Fees Shift Away From Treasury NFT Project Pudgy Penguins Takes Over Las Vegas Sphere in Holiday Campaign Network News BUG THAT COULD DRAIN WALLET AFFECTS THOUSANDS OF WEBSITES: A critical vulnerability in React Server Components is being actively exploited by multiple…