Author: NBTC

A US federal judge has sentenced the former chief revenue officer of defunct cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius to time served after almost three years following his arrest on fraud and conspiracy charges. In a sentencing hearing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday, Judge John Koeltl ordered that Roni Cohen-Pavon be sentenced to time served and one year of supervised release for his role in manipulating the price of Celsius’s CEL token and fraud on the platform. The former chief revenue officer initially pleaded not guilty to four charges following his arrest in…

Circle launched a suite of tools designed to let AI agents hold wallets, discover services and make programmable payments using $USDC, as companies race to build financial infrastructure for autonomous software systems. The products, released under Circle’s new “Agent Stack,” include agent-focused wallets, a command-line developer interface, a marketplace for agentic services and a nanopayments protocol for machine-to-machine transactions. Circle said the nanopayments infrastructure supports gas-free $USDC ($USDC) transfers as small as $0.000001 and is designed for high-frequency autonomous payment flows between software systems. The company said the tools are built to allow AI agents to transact autonomously within predefined…

Strategy bought 45,000 $BTC in 30 days while all other treasury companies combined purchased just 1,000. Corporate participation in Bitcoin buying has collapsed to 2% of total purchases, down from 95% at the peak. Bitdeer, Genius Group, and Cango have actively sold their holdings. The corporate Bitcoin treasury movement had a great story. Dozens of public companies piling into Bitcoin, a structural shift in how institutions manage capital, a new floor under the price. CryptoQuant just put some hard numbers on where that story stands today. In the last 30 days, Strategy bought 45,000 $BTC. Every other treasury company in…

For years, decentralized finance sold itself on a simple promise: code is law. Smart contracts, immutable and transparent, would remove the human weaknesses that plague traditional finance. But the $293 million KelpDAO exploit that occurred last month exposed an uncomfortable reality for crypto’s infrastructure builders: the industry’s biggest vulnerabilities increasingly have little to do with the smart contracts themselves. Instead, the danger now lies in the sprawling web of bridges, governance systems, operational security and third-party dependencies that sit around the code, the messy human and infrastructural layer underpinning modern DeFi. “The contracts in most of these cases did exactly…

Prominent wealth manager Ross Gerber has slammed Robinhood following its latest quarterly report. The financial pundit has described the retail trading platform as nothing more than a “gambling app.” The company’s Q1 report has shown a massive drop in cryptocurrency volumes. The shares of Robinhood (HOOD) have tumbled by roughly 8% in post-market trading. “Nothing more than a casino” Robinhood’s heavy reliance on high-risk and speculative trading activity has apparently backfired. “They only make money when you gamble and lose on…. stock options, crypto and betting,” Gerber stated. “This is a gambling app, nothing more. They make money when you…

Wall Street investment bank and research firm TD Cowen has cautioned that the CLARITY Act’s recent approval by the Senate Banking Committee does not ensure its eventual passage by the full Senate. The analysis, reported by The Block, highlights persistent political hurdles that could derail the bill despite its initial committee success. Committee Approval vs. Full Senate Vote The CLARITY Act, which aims to provide clearer regulatory guidelines for digital assets, cleared the Senate Banking Committee in a vote that saw support from some Democratic lawmakers. However, TD Cowen analysts note that this support may be conditional. Democratic members who…

One of DeFi’s oldest and most damaging problems just met its most serious technical solution yet. Aptos has announced a native Encrypted Mempool, pending governance approval. That would make it the first Layer 1 blockchain to offer full transaction intent confidentiality at the protocol layer. Aptos to Launch Native Encrypted Mempool to Prevent Frontrunning and CensorshipAptos said it will launch a native Encrypted Mempool to protect user transaction intent at the protocol layer, reducing risks such as frontrunning, censorship, and order-flow leakage.The mechanism… pic.twitter.com/4LxtT3MwDO — Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) May 12, 2026 No third-party tools. No workarounds. One click. Full protection…

Bitcoin is demonstrating notable resilience amid rising global uncertainty, while outperforming traditional assets such as gold and the S&P 500, according to a senior Coinbase executive. Key Points John D’Agostino, Coinbase’s head of institutional strategy, highlights Bitcoin’s resilience amid global uncertainty. Bitcoin is outperforming traditional assets, including gold and the S&P 500, in recent weeks. It has ranked among the top-performing assets in 11 of the past 12 years, reinforcing its track record. Geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and Iran have coincided with Bitcoin gaining roughly 7%, reaching ~$70,062. Gold and equities are under pressure, with gold falling sharply and…

The 2020 ‘DeFi Summer’ arrived with a bold promise: a financial system without intermediaries, yet transparent and accessible to anyone worldwide. However, today, billions of dollars flow through decentralized finance, exposing investors to the risk of hacks, yet almost none of it is insured. In the last six years, since DeFi was coined, uninsured lending protocols have lost $7.7 billion to exploits, according to data source DeFiLlama. In April 2026 alone, over $600 million was lost in security events, with Drift and Kelp DAO hacks leading the way. Read more: The $292 million Kelp DAO exploit shows why crypto bridges…

Key Highlights: $HYPE jumped 6% today, March 17, 2026 and hit the $41 mark. Arthur Hayes backs the rally. Rising platform activity and token buyback support $HYPE’s price. Hyperliquid’s native token $HYPE managed to jump more than 6% today, March 17, 2026. The price of the token is now hovering around the $41 mark. This surge is strong when compared to the gains that Bitcoin (1%) has had in the past 24 hours. At press time, the price of $HYPE token stands at $41.43 with an uptick of 6.43% in the last 24-hours as per CoinMarketCap. $HYPE 24-hours chart This…