Author: NBTC

EUR-denominated stablecoins processed at retail virtual asset service providers (VASPs) have grown 12-fold over 15 months to reach $777 million in transaction volume, according to Fireblocks’ State of Stablecoins 2025 report. European banks and fintechs are accelerating production deployments of Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA)-compliant stablecoins following the EU’s regulatory framework implementation. Banking Circle and SG-Forge have emerged as first movers in the MiCA-compliant stablecoin space. Banking Circle launched EURI, a euro-backed digital asset, while SG-Forge brought EURCV to market. Both issuers are now scaling production operations as regulatory clarity under MiCA has enabled institutional adoption. The growth reflects a…

More than half of $XRP Ledger nodes are still running outdated software, with just six days to go before a scheduled amendment activation. $XRP Ledger co-creator David Schwartz spent the weekend talking about a hard fork and downplaying, in his view, the probability of any contentious split in $XRP’s consensus due to their slow upgrades. The ledger’s so-called “fixCleanup3_1_3” amendment cleans up a series of issues affecting NFTs, permissioned domains, vaults, and a new lending protocol. It’s supposed to activate on May 27 but ideally should hold more than 80% support from trusted validating nodes for two weeks. The release…

China’s State Council, the country’s top executive body, has taken up a draft revision to the law governing the People’s Bank of China. The move is the clearest signal yet that Beijing is serious about restructuring how its financial system is supervised, regulated, and ultimately controlled. For crypto markets, the significance is indirect but real. Any rewrite of the PBoC’s legal foundation will almost certainly address digital currency authority, cross-border capital flows, and systemic risk tools, three areas where crypto and traditional finance increasingly collide. What Beijing is actually doing The draft revision to the PBoC Law sits inside a…

Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has processed at least $2.3 billion through the Tron (TRX) and $BNB Chain networks since 2023, according to a Reuters investigation. The fund flows, which involve a nation subject to extensive U.S. economic sanctions, have drawn attention to potential conflicts between American foreign policy and the business interests of the Trump family. Fund Flows and Network Connections The Reuters report, published Thursday, details how Nobitex has moved significant value across two blockchain networks: Tron, founded by Justin Sun, and $BNB Chain, operated by Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Some of these Iran-related transactions are…

Strategy, the largest institutional Bitcoin ($BTC) investor, continues its $BTC buying strategy. Continuing its weekly purchases, Strategy maintains its belief that $BTC will rise. At this point, speaking to CNBC, Strategy founder Michael Saylor said that Bitcoin had fallen from a peak of around $125,000 to around $60,000, where it found solid support and bottomed out. Saylor has now added that Bitcoin has entered its spring warm-up phase. Saylor also stated that the current price level has strong support and predicted that the market would recover from this point. The well-known figure emphasized that the additional Bitcoin supply from miners…

A long-time Ethereum investor and community figure has pushed back against growing alarm over the string of departures from the Ethereum Foundation (EF), arguing that the organization’s commitment to the network is as firm as ever. Ryan Berckmans, who has worked full-time in the Ethereum space for eight years, offered one of the more detailed community-level defenses of the EF’s current direction since the exits started mounting this year. Departures Caused by Differences of Opinion According to Berckmans, people are misreading the situation. “The EF departures are not because the people departing feel differently about Ethereum and our trajectory vs.…

Fed hike odds have climbed to 52% while 30-year U.S. Treasury yields have pushed above 5%, tightening financial conditions and upping the pressure on risk assets from stocks to crypto. Market-based indicators show traders assigning a roughly 52% probability that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates again before year-end, reversing earlier consensus that the next move would be a cut. That marks the first time since the tightening cycle peaked that rate-hike odds have clearly outweighed expectations of cuts, according to futures-based tools that track implied probabilities from Fed funds contracts. Those shifting expectations are moving fast along the…

In a significant on-chain event, blockchain tracking service Whale Alert reported that 439 million $USDC has been burned at the $USDC Treasury. The transaction, recorded on the Ethereum network, represents a large-scale reduction in the circulating supply of the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization. Understanding the $USDC Burn A burn in the context of stablecoins like $USDC refers to the permanent removal of tokens from circulation. When $USDC is redeemed for fiat currency by holders or institutions, the equivalent amount of tokens is sent to the $USDC Treasury and subsequently burned. This process ensures that the circulating supply remains pegged…

The former chief risk officer of Silvergate revealed she made the decision to settle with the US securities regulator in 2024 to avoid a “multi-year battle” in court, where she was accused of misleading investors about anti-money laundering rules and how the bank monitored crypto customers. In her first public comments about her settlement with the SEC on Wednesday, Kate Fraher claimed that no financial agency proved that Silvergate’s anti-money laundering controls had failed, and that she only opted to settle to “move forward.” Fraher had agreed to a civil penalty of $250,000 and and was banned from serving as…

Pump.fun remained Solana’s largest revenue generator in the first quarter of 2026, pulling in $124.7 million, more than a third of the network’s $342.2 million in total app revenue, despite cooling memecoin activity. The memecoin launchpad’s revenue rose 17% quarter over quarter, a sign that its core business remains resilient, Messari said in its Solana Q1 report. Launchpads generated $144 million in Q1, roughly 42% of Solana’s total app revenue. A standout within the sector was Bags, whose quarterly revenue surged 1,347% to $11.5 million, fueled by a wave of AI-themed memecoins in January. The surge proved short-lived, with monthly…