Author: NBTC

While the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under Gary Gensler preferred regulation through enforcement, the new SEC administration is adopting a more lenient approach towards cryptocurrencies. At this point, the new SEC under the Trump administration prefers to regulate cryptocurrencies through legal means rather than through sanctions. In its announcement regarding enforcement results for 2025, the SEC stated that it has initiated 95 cases and imposed $2.3 billion in fines for violations since fiscal year 2022. However, the SEC has acknowledged the flaws and failures in some of its past enforcement actions against crypto companies, and that these actions…

Coinbase has announced an upgrade for the x402 protocol, enabling usage-based pricing for agentic AI compute requests, which replaces the former flat fee model. In a post on X on Thursday, Coinbase Developer Platform announced the “Upto” scheme has gone live, adding it will help open up “variable-cost services” for agentic AI such as large language model inference, compute and data queries. “Until now, x402 only supported exact, fixed-price payments. That works great for deterministic APIs. But it blocked an entire category of services where the cost depends on usage, such as token count, compute time, or query complexity,” Coinbase…

Blockchain infrastructure company Biconomy has unveiled ERC-8211, an execution standard for on-chain AI agents, co-developed with the Ethereum Foundation, per an X post on April 7. The development falls under the EF’s Improve UX initiative. The new standard — referred to as “smart batching” — lets AI agents carry out complex, multi-step DeFi strategies without pre-encoding every parameter at signing time. The specification was published on April 6 alongside an open-source reference implementation and a live demo. The proposal lists four authors, primarily current and former Biconomy engineers: Mislav Javor, Filip Dujmušić, Filipp Makarov, and Venkatesh Rajendran. According to Biconomy’s…

Crypto exchange and custodian Gemini’s stock dropped more than 16% after Citigroup analysts downgraded the company Wednesday morning, suggesting that it’ll be years before the firm is profitable. The company, which trades on the Nasdaq under the GEMI symbol, saw its rating fall from Neutral to Sell, and Citi lowered its price target from $13 to $5.50, according to a note published Wednesday morning. At the time of writing, GEMI was changing hands for $5.95 per share after having dropped more than 16% since markets opened. Gemini was founded in 2014 by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and went live the…

A White House report released Wednesday directly challenges the banking industry’s claims that stablecoin yields would drain deposits and weaken lending to households and small businesses. Instead, banning those stablecoin rewards would have only a negligible impact on credit creation, the analysis, released by the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), found. The White House economists behind the 21-page report said their findings are based on a stylized economic model calibrated with Federal Reserve and FDIC data on deposits, lending and bank liquidity, as well as industry disclosures on stablecoin reserves and academic estimates of how consumers shift funds between assets.…

Bitcoin mining is still running on the subsidy, not demand. That is the more useful place to start as we head into the next Bitcoin difficulty adjustment window, which CoinWarz now estimates for April 18, 2026, with difficulty projected to fall from 138.97 trillion to 132.14 trillion, a decline of 4.91%. The schedule matters less than the structure underneath it. YCharts, using Blockchain.com data, showed daily Bitcoin transaction fees at 2.443 $BTC on April 8, down 69% from a year earlier. With the block subsidy fixed at 3.125 $BTC and the network producing roughly 144 blocks a day, fees are…

LinkLayerAI, an intelligent incentive protocol powered by artificial intelligence (AI), has announced a strategic partnership with Magne.AI, a Web3-native AI smartphone that is redefining secure ownership and on-device intelligence. This partnership aims to bring a new era of secure on-chain trading with Web3 devices. 👏Excited to explore synergies with @Magne_Ai — a Web3-native AI smartphone redefining secure ownership and on-device intelligence.👉At LinkLayerAI, we’re building verifiable trading Agents and empowering personal live trading for everyone.Together, we see a future where… pic.twitter.com/W7euZeFTSd — LinkLayerAI (@LinkLayerAI) April 9, 2026 LinkLayerAI is building verifiable trading agents and strengthening personal live trading for everyone in…

Markets are wrestling with conflicting signals as Ethereum crypto pushes higher into resistance while broader sentiment remains deeply cautious and defensive. $ETH/USDT — daily chart with candlesticks, EMA20/EMA50 and volume. Thesis: Bullish Momentum Inside a Broader Damage-Control Phase Ethereum crypto (ETHUSDT) is pressing higher around 2,253 with short-term momentum firmly in buyers’ hands, but it is doing so inside a larger market backdrop still scarred from prior damage. The daily trend is recovering, not roaring, as price trades well below the 200-day, yet it has reclaimed and is holding above the 20-day and 50-day EMAs. That is a textbook repair…

Coinbase is reportedly in the running to partner with Cloudflare on issuing a stablecoin purpose-built for AI transactions. The deal, first reported by The Information, would position both companies at the intersection of two industries that can’t stop talking about each other. If that sounds like a corporate Mad Libs combining every buzzy term of 2025 — AI, stablecoins, agents — well, it kind of is. But there’s a real problem being solved here, and the companies chasing it aren’t exactly startups running on vibes. What we know about the deal Details remain thin. What’s been reported is that Coinbase…

South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party is reportedly preparing a draft bill that would classify stablecoins as foreign exchange payment instruments and require tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) to be backed by assets held in trust. Citing an integrated draft of the proposed Digital Asset Basic Act, the Seoul Economic Daily reported on Wednesday that stablecoins used in cross-border transactions would be treated as “means of payment” under the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, placing related businesses under oversight even without separate registration. The draft bill would also require issuers of tokenized RWAs to place underlying assets in managed trusts under the Capital…