Author: NBTC

M2, the Abu Dhabi based regulated crypto exchange, has dropped its previous business model and is now focusing on being a digital asset wealth management platform. The firm which is backed by UAE sovereign wealth fund ADQ, with shares also owned by Phoenix Group, has changed its business plan and will now focus on serving high-net-worth individuals (HNWI), family offices, institutional investors and corporate treasuries, offering them digital asset investment solutions. Globally there has been a rising demand for institutional investment in digital assets. An EY survey reported that nearly 60% of institutional investors plan to allocate over 5% of…

Hong Kong-based institutional prime broker LTP has partnered with the UK fintech provider Gold-i to broaden distribution of its cryptocurrency and Forex liquidity, as institutional investors increasingly demand unified access to both digital and traditional asset markets. The partnership connects LTP’s liquidity pools to Gold-i’s MatrixNET platform, which according to both companies, should allow brokers, hedge funds, family offices and professional traders to access both crypto and FX markets through a single FIX API connection. LTP has been expanding beyond its core crypto prime brokerage services to include traditional FX and CFD markets. The firm now offers unified market access…

The Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty, a metric that tracks the relative challenge of adding new blocks to the ledger, climbed to a new all-time high of 142.3 trillion on Friday. Mining difficulty hit successive all-time highs in August and September, driven by an influx of freshly deployed computing power over the last several weeks. Bitcoin’s hashrate, the average of the total computing power securing the decentralized monetary protocol, also hit an all-time high of over 1.1 trillion hashes per second on Friday, according to CryptoQuant. The rising mining difficulty and the constant need for energy-hungry, high-performance computing power to secure…

Key Takeaways Mercado Bitcoin will issue $200 million in tokenized fixed income and equity instruments on the Stellar network. The initiative highlights Stellar’s growing role in bringing Latin American real-world assets onchain. Mercado Bitcoin, Latin America’s major digital asset investment platform, will issue $200 million in tokenized fixed income and equity financial instruments on the Stellar network, the company announced today at Stellar Meridian 2025. The project taps into Stellar’s proven track record in real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, especially in Latin America’s financial sector. The region’s crypto market is forecast to reach $442 billion by 2033, according to IMARC Group.…

A lending product unveiled by Coinbase that offers up to 10.8% returns on USDC deposits is receiving a temporary boost from DeFi lender Morpho. On X, Coinbase Head of Consumer and Business Products Max Branzburg said on Thursday that around 6% of the product’s returns stem from activity that takes place on Morpho’s platform, while an additional 5% is being “boosted” by the protocol itself. In a statement to Decrypt, a Coinbase spokesperson confirmed that Morpho is currently augmenting the lending product’s returns, but it declined to say whether the arrangement was the product of a deal, or when the…

Trend Research has moved back into Ethereum after a series of large-scale transactions this week. On-chain data shows the firm regained 43,377 ETH, valued at about $192 million. It follows an $80 million transfer of USDT to Binance. The move follows months of careful position management by the trading firm, which is led by investor Boss Yi. On September 4, two newly created wallets linked to Trend Research withdrew 34,000 ETH. This is worth around $150 million from Binance. The assets were deposited into Aave, a leading decentralized lending platform. This week, the same wallets borrowed $80 million in USDT…

The recent steep decline in the market-to-net-asset value (mNAV) of companies that hold large amounts of digital assets is amplifying market anxiety. On Monday, Standard Chartered Bank warned that the falling mNAV of small to mid-sized digital asset treasury (DAT) companies is heightening market risk. Shifting Landscape for DAT Firms DAT firms are publicly traded companies that hold and manage cryptocurrencies and other digital assets as core business assets. These companies raise capital by holding Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital assets as primary assets on their balance sheets. In contrast, traditional firms hold cash or bonds. This model allows investors…

Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, stated that there should be uniform cryptocurrency regulation in the country. At this point, Coinbase sent a letter to the US Department of Justice requesting that federal regulators prevent state regulations from conflicting with national crypto policies and ensure uniform regulatory clarity. Coinbase’s request comes after the state of Oregon filed a lawsuit against Coinbase for unregistered securities, despite the SEC withdrawing its lawsuit against the cryptocurrency exchange. Coinbase states that although the country’s top regulator, the SEC, withdrew its lawsuit, states are filing lawsuits in defiance of the SEC’s decision.…

US Goes Back to the Future on Crypto Trading The CFTC’s decision to make it easier for global crypto platforms to accept US customers may open the door wider for US-based traders to access liquidity, but despite the hype it was a door that was already ajar. The politicisation of commodity trading in the US was highlighted again in late August when the acting chair of the CFTC outlined the foreign board of trade (FBOT) registration framework for non-US entities looking to provide customers in the US with direct market access to their trading platforms. Join IG, CMC, and Robinhood…

Aave reached $30.5 billion in active loans on Sept. 18, representing 65% of the $46.72 billion in total active loans across decentralized protocols. Data from Token Terminal shows that the lending protocol maintains a comfortable lead over competitors. Its nearest rival, Morpho, holds less than $5 billion in active loans. Aave also commands a total value locked (TVL) of $42 billion, making it the largest DeFi protocol by TVL, based on DefiLlama data. The deposit figures would position Aave as the 53rd largest US commercial bank if it operated under traditional banking structures, placing it among the top 2.5% of…