Author: NBTC

Jia, a financial platform targeting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Southeast Asia, has secured $3 million in a seed funding round led by Coinbase Ventures. The investment also drew participation from the Stellar Development Foundation, A100x, TCG, and Hashed Emergent, signaling growing interest in blockchain-based lending solutions for underserved business segments in the region. Addressing a Persistent Funding Gap Small and medium-sized enterprises account for the vast majority of businesses across Southeast Asia, yet they frequently struggle to access traditional bank financing due to collateral requirements, limited credit histories, and high administrative costs. Jia aims to bridge this gap…

Anatoly Yakovenko told an applauding Consensus Miami 2026 conference earlier this month that Solana would be upgrading to Alpenglow, heralding a live testnet within a week as evidence that it’s “basically due sometime this year, I think next quarter.” According to developers implementing that upgrade, Alpenglow actually broke while going live. Anza, the Solana development outfit leading the rollout, left that error out of the mainstream press cycle. Alpenglow is supposed to be the largest consensus change in Solana’s history, and is supposed to replace proof-of-history which has cryptographically ordered Solana’s network since launch. Validators approved it in September 2025…

The CLARITY Act might be delayed until as late as 2030. Lawmakers have warned that if it does not pass before the August recess begins, there is an open-ended calendar on how far into the future the delays could stretch. The delay in passing the CLARITY Act is due to the Senate being unable to agree on certain terms like anti money-laundering rules and stablecoin yield. Can the CLARITY Act still pass before the August recess? The long anticipated CLARITY Act might be delayed again due to the legislative calendar. The Senate is returning from its Memorial Day break in…

The Solana-based memecoin launchpad Pump.fun is set to expand its trading options by introducing support for $USDC pairs when launching new coins. The update, scheduled for implementation on May 21, will allow users to trade newly created tokens against the $USDC stablecoin for the first time. Expanding Beyond $SOL-Only Trading Currently, Pump.fun only supports trading pairs denominated in Solana’s native token, $SOL. This limitation has been a defining feature of the platform since its launch, but also a point of friction for traders who prefer stablecoin-based trading. The upcoming change will not affect existing $SOL trading pairs, meaning both options…

Bitcoin’s seemingly stable and dull price moves over the past couple of days came to an end hours ago as the asset initiated a notable leg down that drove it to a new multi-week low of well under $76,000. The latest rejection came just hours after Kevin Warsh officially became the seventeenth Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve. He was sworn in on Friday at the White House for the four-year role. US President Donald Trump said he expects Warsh to “go down as one of the truly great Chairmen of the Federal Reserve that we have ever had,…

A few days after more abrupt departures of several high-profile Ethereum Foundation researchers and contributors, the silence from the EF has only deepened the uncertainty gripping the Ethereum community. What began earlier this week as shock over more exits of core figures has now evolved into something more existential, according to some community members: a public reckoning over whether Ethereum’s most influential institution still understands the ecosystem it was built to steward. The Foundation has yet to offer a detailed explanation for the departures or address the growing criticism of its leadership and strategic direction, which many have pointed out…

International Holding Company (IHC) is the most valuable holding company in the Middle East and one of the world’s largest investment firms, with a market capitalization of over USD 233 billion. Headquartered in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and primarily owned by the Royal Group, the private family office of Abu Dhabi’s ruling dynasty, has carried out a $30 million transaction using UAE Central Bank regulated DDSC built on the ADI Chain, Layer 2 blockchain developed by UAE based ADI Foundation. As per the announcement, the transaction represents a defining milestone for the DDSC stablecoin ecosystem, demonstrating operational readiness, scalability, and real-world…

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Futures Association on May 21, formalizing how they will coordinate examinations, share information, and monitor risks across the securities and derivatives markets. The MOU covers three areas: emerging risk management, examination program coordination, and financial market conditions monitoring. Staff from both institutions will hold periodic coordination meetings, per the SEC press release. SEC and NFA staff can now share compliance data The agreement formalizes cooperation that had largely taken place informally. Staff from the SEC and NFA can share information on compliance with securities…

Polymarket has launched a new category of prediction markets tied to private companies, allowing users to trade on questions related to pre-IPO companies — a move that could bring greater price discovery to private markets, where valuation data is often limited and opaque. The new offering, announced Tuesday, was developed in partnership with Nasdaq Private Market, a platform that facilitates secondary trading in shares of privately held companies. Nasdaq Private Market will provide the underlying data and market infrastructure for the contracts. The markets are designed to reflect expectations around events such as fundraising rounds, valuation changes and other corporate…

Jeremy Sturdivant, the 19 year old who received 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas in May 2010, spent almost all of it long before $BTC crossed even $1, let alone today’s five figure levels. Jeremy Sturdivant, known as “jercos” on the Bitcointalk forum, was the counterparty to Laszlo Hanyecz’s now legendary 10,000 $BTC pizza purchase on May 22, 2010. How did Jeremy Sturdivant end up with 10,000 $BTC for pizza? The deal that turned into Bitcoin Pizza Day began on the Bitcointalk forum on May 18, 2010, when Florida programmer Laszlo Hanyecz offered 10,000 $BTC to anyone willing to get him…