Author: NBTC

Portal to Bitcoin, a Bitcoin-first protocol enabling trust-minimized cross-chain trading, has secured $50 million in new financing led by Paloma Investments, bringing the project’s total funds raised to $92 million. The funding will support the expansion of BitScaler, the firm’s adapter that scales native Bitcoin without wrapped tokens, custodial bridges, or “message passing or other insecure alternatives,” according to an emailed announcement shared with CoinDesk on Thursday. The company aims to make Bitcoin the settlement layer for millions of markets, including tokenized stocks, bonds, stablecoins, and other real-world assets. “We want users to trade any asset, traditional or decentralized, and…

Paul Atkins just put a fellow crypto-friendly veteran in charge of one of his SEC’s most powerful arms. On Wednesday, he picked James Moloney, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, to lead the division of corporation finance, the unit that checks company disclosures and signs off on IPO filings. The SEC confirmed that James will start next month. But this isn’t James’ first time in the building. He worked inside the SEC from 1994 to 2000, focusing on mergers and acquisitions and corporate filings. So this isn’t some rookie walking in with a briefcase and a dream. Paul said:…

Plasma, a forthcoming layer-1 blockchain built for stablecoins, has made three new senior hires, Blockworks has learned exclusively. The startup brought in Murat Firat as head of product, Adam Jacobs as head of global payments, and Usmann Khan as head of protocol security. These senior level hires come shortly after the Peter Thiel-backed project held a blockbuster token sale that netted some $373 million in commitments. Plasma is yet to publicly announce a date for its mainnet launch. Plasma will be purpose-built for stablecoins, which according to its public documentation means over 1,000 transactions per second, zero-fee USDT transfers, custom…

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum (ETH) cofounder, has shared his thoughts about stablecoins as an asset class in the cryptocurrency space. Buterin dropped his insights in reaction to a post highlighting Codex, a stablecoin built on the Ethereum blockchain. Vitalik Buterin tags stablecoins key driver of crypto utility According to Buterin, cheap stablecoin transactions remain one of the key real-world value drivers of the crypto industry. He is implying that stablecoins have utility in cross-border remittances and payments, which makes them pivotal in the adoption of crypto. Notably, new users in the crypto space require stablecoins to purchase different cryptocurrencies like Ethereum,…

The price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rose on Thursday as investors mulled the strength of Nvidia’s earnings and signs of a stronger-than-expected U.S. economy. Bitcoin changed hands around $113,000, a 0.9% increase over the past day, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. Solana meanwhile rose 2.3% to $212. SOL was up nearly 5% at one point before retreating.  Ethereum and XRP dropped dropped 2.7% and 0.8%, respectively. ETH was trading near $4,500, well off its all-time high set over the weekend. Nvidia disclosed record profits on Wednesday alongside its ninth straight quarter of year-over-year revenue growth of over 50%.…

Jonathan Gould, Chairman of the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), said that banks must end discrimination in their participation in “legally permissible activities” related to the cryptocurrency sector. Speaking at an event in Washington on Wednesday, Gould argued that he sees cryptocurrencies as a natural extension of financial intermediation services. “I consider many crypto-related activities among the legally permitted transactions that banks want to participate in,” said Gould, adding that the institution will work more closely with banks in this area and draw a roadmap that will ensure the safe conduct of activities. Gould’s comments came…

As neighbouring countries like Paraguay and Venezuela deal with the impact of illegal crypto mining, a man has been arrested in the state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil on charges of siphoning off-grid electricity to mine cryptocurrencies. The incident occurred in the Freguesia area, on Governador Island, an island in the north of the state. According to communications from local police, officers found several high-performance machines used for digital mining and that the house had electricity but no meter, indicating illegal theft. The property was rented exclusively for cryptocurrency mining operations according to police, and the mining activity was…

Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano and early co-founder of Ethereum, says the American healthcare system isn’t broken — it’s working exactly as designed. And that, he says, is the problem. “Healthcare is just fucked in America. It’s just fucked. Everybody knows it’s true,” Hoskinson said in an interview with CoinDesk TV at the Rare Evo conference in Las Vegas. “Yet they all try to continue making the system go because it’s just too profitable.” While it may sound like a harsh criticism, Hoskinson is putting his money where his mouth is: He is pouring $200 million investment into a…

September has historically been the weakest month for Ethereum, with median returns showing losses of more than 12%. This year’s September started no differently. ETF outflows and broader market hesitation kept the Ethereum price under pressure in the opening week. However, September 2025 might not follow history so neatly. Three bullish signs have emerged that could flip the script and push the Ethereum price toward new highs, in its historically weakest month. Well, that would be such an anti-climax. Whales Buy Big as Weak Hands Exit At press time, Ethereum trades near $4,406. Just this week, ETH touched lows of…

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has criticized traditional financial infrastructures, particularly SWIFT, forecasting their eventual demise. Speaking in an interview on the David Lin Report, Hoskinson predicted that SWIFT and other large traditional financial systems will eventually “die” due to their inability to sustain themselves. He backed up this claim by pointing to several shortcomings of legacy financial systems. In his view, legacy financial systems have numerous complexities and also impose high trust requirements, which can be frustrating for everyday users. However, he suggested that it is easier to complete a transfer from a multi-signature wallet, such as Ledger. He argued…