Author: NBTC

With Bitcoin mining economics under pressure from historically low hashprice levels of mining revenue and rising network competition, AI and HPC infrastructure revenue has emerged as a stabilizing and, in some cases, significantly larger growth driver. This article first appeared in The Energy Mag. The original article can be viewed here. The Energy Mag (formerly The Miner Mag) provides news, data, and insights on the energy–compute–markets nexus. The first installment of this Bitcoin-AI convergence series explored a foundational idea: Bitcoin mining was never just about digital currency. It was designed as a long-term energy system, converting electricity into computation. The…

Bitcoin’s aggregated open interest in the futures market rebounded sharply, returning toward 268,600 contracts. The eight-hour weighted funding rate averaged a positive 0.0085%, reflecting strong leveraged optimism in long positions. U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded net capital outflows of $700 million per day. The surge in leverage has created a complex scenario in the crypto market, further complicated by rising retail speculation and aggressive selling in the spot market. In a landscape ruled by uncertainty, the Bitcoin volatility warning has captured traders’ attention as they closely monitor derivatives behavior to anticipate the next price movements. $BTC is going…

On-chain data from Onchain Lens reveals that the Worldcoin team has deposited 13.18 million $WLD tokens, worth approximately $3.09 million, to the Coinbase exchange. Such movements of tokens to centralized exchanges are typically interpreted as preparation for selling, which can exert downward pressure on the token’s price. Details of the Deposit The transaction was detected and reported by Onchain Lens, a blockchain analytics platform. The deposit involves a significant portion of the $WLD token supply, raising questions about the team’s intentions. While depositing tokens to an exchange does not guarantee an immediate sale, it is a common step taken by…

In brief The Digital Chamber urged the OCC to defend recent national trust bank charter approvals for crypto firms. Sen. Elizabeth Warren argued the approvals may violate banking law by letting crypto firms perform bank-like activities under lighter regulation. The crypto industry countered that Congress effectively authorized such activity through the $GENIUS Act. Days after a Sen. Elizabeth Warren said the Treasury Department’s recent spate of bank charter approvals for crypto firms may be illegal, industry leaders are forcefully pushing back on the characterization. On Tuesday, the Digital Chamber, a top crypto industry trade group, implored the Trump Treasury Department…

Agentic payment protocol x402 volume collapsed roughly 77% from its November 2025 peak of $5.15 million to $1.19 million by May 2026. Meanwhile, transaction count fell only 41% from its December 2025 peak of 4.85 million, then rebounded to 2.89 million in May, up 12.5x from a February trough, with an average transaction size of $0.52. The market’s recovery took the form of high-frequency, low-value usage, revealing that agents are paying for APIs, data, and compute over HTTP at sub-dollar amounts, relying on automation to function. A conservative 5-to-15-second wallet confirmation to each of those 2.89 million monthly x402 transactions…

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust shed $527.84 million on Wednesday, the second-largest single-day net outflow since the fund launched in January 2024, per SoSoValue data. The figure missed the record by a razor-thin margin. IBIT’s biggest outflow on record remains the $528.3 million pulled on Jan. 30, which Wednesday’s draw came within about $500,000 of matching. The fund holds roughly $59 billion in assets and accounts for close to 4% of bitcoin’s total supply, making it the largest single vehicle for institutional bitcoin exposure. The outflow was part of a broader exodus. The 11 U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs lost a combined…

A startup focused on a little-known but costly regulatory risk for crypto and fintech companies has secured $10 million in Series A funding. Eisen, which specializes in escheatment — the process by which unclaimed assets are turned over to state governments — announced the round, bringing its total funding to $18.5 million, as first reported by Fortune. What Is Escheatment and Why Does It Matter for Crypto? Escheatment laws require financial institutions to transfer dormant or unclaimed assets to state treasuries after a certain period of inactivity. While traditionally applied to bank accounts and safe deposit boxes, these laws increasingly…

Community developer isleepcode released two Neo N3 tools within four days in May – Gasetta, an AI-powered tracker for Neo core development activity on GitHub, and neovest, a trustless token vesting smart contract. Both are open-source, grassroots contributions to the Neo N3 ecosystem. isleepcode, who operates under the smartargs organization on GitHub, was previously covered by NNT for the neocity blockchain visualization project in March. Gasetta: tracking Neo core development Gasetta, released on May 16, provides AI-generated summaries of activity across Neo’s GitHub repositories. The tool tracks what the core team is shipping and monitors comments from Neo co-founders Da…

Hong Kong just took another concrete step toward becoming Asia’s most comprehensively regulated crypto hub. On May 26, the city’s Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau (FSTB) and Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) published consultation conclusions on proposed licensing frameworks for virtual asset advisory and management service providers. The licensing architecture maps neatly onto Hong Kong’s existing Securities and Futures Ordinance. Virtual asset advisory activities will align with Type 4 regulated activities, which currently govern securities advice. Management services, meanwhile, fall under Type 9, the category for asset management. Both licensing regimes will sit under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist…

Most people have never heard of Nium. But there’s a good chance money has moved through its infrastructure. The Singapore-based payments company powers cross-border payouts, card programs, and treasury services for banks, fintechs, and enterprises around the world. Operating across more than 190 countries and holding over 40 regulatory licenses globally, Nium has quietly become one of the largest payment networks most consumers never see. Now it’s bringing stablecoins into that network. Circle has partnered with Nium to integrate $USDC settlement into its global payout infrastructure, allowing businesses to move funds using stablecoins while settling payments in more than 100…