Author: NBTC

Nikita Bier announced on Wednesday that he is stepping down as X’s head of product. After a little more than a year, in his own words: “time to pass the torch and demote myself to my natural state: a poster.” He stays on as an adviser. Crypto circles have been treating his exit as a turning point since yesterday. That overstates it — Bier was not the crypto lead at X. The timing is interesting all the same, for one concrete reason: he leaves a few weeks after X launched its payments product, and the question of whether cryptocurrencies will…

Tether-backed Bitcoin-focused company Twenty One Capital has reported a $413.5 million net loss for the second quarter of 2026 after Bitcoin’s decline reduced the value of its holdings. Bitcoin losses have dominated Twenty One Capital’s results According to Twenty One Capital’s second-quarter financial report, a $401.5 million decline in the value of its Bitcoin holdings accounted for most of the company’s quarterly loss. Twenty One Capital’s latest loss has shown how strongly its financial statements depend on Bitcoin’s price at the end of each reporting period. Because the company holds the cryptocurrency as its main asset, changes in Bitcoin’s fair…

An Ethereum staking proposal would lower the native-yield baseline underpinning SharpLink’s strategy to make its corporate $ETH treasury more productive, increasing its reliance on variable and higher-risk sources of return. EIP-8363 would progressively burn a larger share of consensus rewards as the amount of staked $ETH rises. At 60.25 million $ETH, the model reaches a burn factor of 1 and net consensus yield falls to zero. The proposal describes that threshold as 49.5% of its modeled supply, so “50% staked” is useful shorthand, not an exact permanent ratio. The Ethereum staking proposal is an active candidate for Ethereum’s Hegotá upgrade,…

Western Union launched Stablecard across 37 markets on August 4, putting its USDPT stablecoin on Solana into the hands of consumers through a Visa card. The 173 year old remittance giant is betting that 380,000 cash-out locations will beat crypto-native competitors at their own game, but the math says it is automating the destruction of its own margin. Western Union filed its stablecoin strategy in a single press release on May 4. Three months later, Stablecard went live across 37 markets, the Digital Asset Network connected external crypto wallets to 380,000 agent locations, and the company’s Q2 earnings showed digital…

Vanar Chain has announced plans to migrate its blockchain operations to Coinbase’s Base network, marking a significant strategic shift for the project. The move, disclosed via the project’s official X account, will see VANRY tokens transition from supporting existing blockchain infrastructure to playing a central role in coordinating and incentivizing an artificial intelligence ecosystem. Token Supply Expansion and Lockup Structure As part of the migration, the total supply of VANRY tokens will increase from 2.4 billion to 10 billion. According to the project’s announcement, 62% of the total supply will be initially locked up, with newly allocated tokens scheduled to…

Happy Thursday, advisors! In today’s newsletter, Maria Golenkovexplains how the EU’s MiCA framework is the blueprint for future U.S crypto regulation. Learn why your governance and controls need to align now to avoid scrambling later. Then, in “Ask an Expert,” Felix Xu answers questions around why operational risk is the primary investment risk in digital assets, explaining the specific internal controls advisors must demand. Happy reading. MiCA’s final deadline just hit in Europe. U.S. advisors should be taking notes. Right now, America’s crypto regulatory landscape is fragmented across multiple agencies. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulates one thing, the…

Wintermute, a prominent cryptocurrency market maker, has obtained a U.S. broker-dealer license, marking a significant step in bridging the gap between digital assets and traditional finance. The license, reported by The Wall Street Journal, will allow the firm to expand into trading commodities, crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and tokenized stocks, subject to regulatory approvals. This move also grants Wintermute USA designated market maker (DMM) status on major exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq, positioning the company at the forefront of institutional crypto adoption. Strategic Expansion into Regulated Markets Wintermute’s entry into the U.S. broker-dealer space…

Bitdeer’s existing at-the-money program could raise up to $1 billion through Class A share sales, about twice the roughly $500 million the Bitcoin miner says it still needs to build its Tydal AI data center. Its latest prospectus supplement filed Aug. 10 sets no minimum sale amount, however, and does not commit the company to sell the full authorization or spend all of it on Tydal. At the filing’s illustrative price of $10.88, a full draw on Bitdeer’s $1 billion ATM capacity would require about 91.9 million new shares. That issuance would equal 40.4% of the 227.4 million Class A…

Bitcoin ($BTC) headed lower around Tuesday’s Wall Street open as investors’ appetite for gold sent the precious metal to nine-week highs. Key points: Bitcoin takes a backseat as gold steals the limelight climbing to $4,435 per ounce. Analysis eyes the Bitcoin-gold positive correlation still in place. Key resistance near $66,000 keeps $BTC price action in check ahead of the US CPI inflation print. Retail investors pile into gold ETFs Data from TradingView showed $BTC/USD abandoning a low-timeframe rebound to drop back below $64,000. $BTC/USD four-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView The pair finished down 1.5% on Monday thanks to concerns over the…

Institutional infrastructure simplifies technical access to DeFi and complicates legal consequences of using it. FATF’s recent report admits that VASPs and DeFi arrangements bring lots of operational benefits including automated settlement, cross-border reach, 24/7 availability and generally higher yields.But none of this moves institutions outside their existing AML/CFT responsibilities. Brokers, banks and other regulated financial institutions must identify who controls a DeFi protocol before using or integrating it into their systems — regardless of how the arrangement is structured or marketed. Three Tiers, One Duty The report sorts DeFi arrangements into three categories: those with identifiable controllers, those that are…