Crypto

UNICEF has pressed governments to criminalize AI-generated child sexual abuse material, warning deepfakes are exposing children to serious harm beyond existing laws.

Buterin argued that many Layer 2s no longer meaningfully inherit Ethereum security.

Bhutan has slipped to the seventh-largest nation-state Bitcoin holder, with its stash falling from 13,295 BTC in October 2024 to 5,700 BTC. Bhutan has offloaded another $22 million in Bitcoin mined through its state-owned mining venture, with the sale coming amid crypto price declines and challenging mining conditions. Data from blockchain analytics platform Arkham shows that Bhutan moved 184 Bitcoin (BTC) worth $14 million from its national reserve on Wednesday, adding to another 100.8 Bitcoin transfer worth $8.3 million last Friday.  The $22.3 million worth of transfers were sent to crypto market maker QCP Capital, Arkham said. Transferring assets to market makers often signals a sale, as they help convert those assets into liquid markets. Read more

Payy says its new layer-2 network routes ERC-20 transfers through privacy pools by default without requiring new wallets or tokens. Crypto project Payy, which operates a privacy-focused wallet alongside a crypto banking card, has launched an Ethereum layer-2 network designed to support private ERC-20 transfers. In an announcement via X on Wednesday, Payy said users can add the network as a custom chain in MetaMask and that ERC-20 transfers made on it are routed through privacy pools by default with “no smart contract changes required.”  Payy said the two core user types on its network would be institutions and fintech firms seeking to bring financial flows onchain while limiting public transaction traceability and crypto natives seeking to use privacy tools without “juggling multiple wallets.” Read more

Social media sentiment has turned “extremely bearish” toward Bitcoin and Ethereum this week, according to analytics platform Santiment. XRP sentiment on social media has remained relatively robust despite a crypto market slump that has seen Bitcoin fall close to $70,000. Santiment said in an X post on Wednesday that “XRP is seeing a more optimistic outlook among traders” on social media as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) have “turned extremely bearish” after a major downswing. Santiment’s Positive/Negative sentiment indicator, which measures the ratio of positive to negative social media mentions for a cryptoasset, shows XRP (XRP) has a score of 2.19, 103% higher than Ethereum’s 1.08 and 173% higher than Bitcoin’s 0.80. Read more

The filing follows approval of Starlink’s Gen2 expansion and Elon Musk’s push to move AI infrastructure into orbit.

The latest decline reflects a broader unwind in leverage, with investors reassessing Bitcoin’s short-term role as an inflation hedge.

CFTC Chair Mike Selig described the proposal as a “frolic into merit regulation” by the Biden administration. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has withdrawn a Biden administration-era proposal that would have banned sports and political prediction markets, some of the most popular event contracts today. The recently confirmed CFTC chair, Mike Selig, said on Wednesday that the agency has withdrawn a 2024 notice of proposed rulemaking that sought to ban event contracts for sports, politics and war, among other topics, classifying them as “contrary to the public interest.” Selig said the proposal “reflected the prior administration’s frolic into merit regulation with an outright prohibition on political contracts ahead of the 2024 presidential election,” adding that CFTC doesn’t plan to issue final rules on the proposal. Read more

Strium will begin with synthetic US and Japanese stocks and commodities before expanding to real tokenized shares and asset-backed products with identity verification. Startale Group and Japan’s financial conglomerate SBI Holdings have launched Strium, a layer-1 blockchain designed to support exchange-layer and settlement infrastructure for institutional trading of foreign exchange, tokenized equities and real-world assets (RWAs). The platform is designed as an exchange-layer network, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph. “Tokenization is an inevitable trend, and equities tokenization is clearly the next big market,” said Sota Watanabe, CEO of Startale Group. He added that Strium aims to bridge the gap between traditional offchain finance and the onchain ecosystem by enabling compliant dividend and royalty payments. Read more

Solana became one of Samani’s favorite crypto projects at Multicoin in 2018 after he initially favored Ethereum but grew dissatisfied with how its developers addressed scaling. Multicoin Capital’s co-founder, Kyle Samani, said he is stepping down as managing partner of the crypto investment firm after 10 years in the industry.  Samani called it a “bittersweet moment” in a post on Wednesday, adding, “I am excited to take some time off and explore new areas of technology,” which he later revealed would include AI and robotics. He added that he is “more confident than ever that crypto is going to fundamentally rewire the circuitry of finance.” Read more

A selloff in professional-services stocks followed fresh concerns that AI agents could disrupt traditional software pricing.

Crypto price prediction today follows a shaky February start as Bitcoin trades near $75,000 and drags sentiment lower. XRP sits in a descending channel with RSI near 27 and $1.40 in view. Cardano is below 2024 lows, with $0.35 as the reclaim level. DOGE tests $0.10–$0.11, eyeing $0.13 on BTC bounce. The post Crypto Price Prediction Today 4 February – XRP, Cardano, Dogecoin appeared first on Cryptonews.

Best crypto to buy now February 4 has shifted as a broad selloff has pulled bitcoin toward $76,000. Even with the drawdown, US regulation momentum has built around the CLARITY Act. Focus has turned to XRP ETFs, oversold Solana, Hyperliquid’s rally and Bitcoin Hyper’s Layer-2 presale through Q2 2026. The post Best Crypto to Buy Now February 4 – XRP, Solana, Hyperliquid appeared first on Cryptonews.

Tether has scaled back fundraising talks to about $5B after investors pushed back on a proposed $500B valuation.

Google's Gemini AI predicts XRP, Ethereum and Solana could hit new highs in 2026-27 if a long bull cycle and clearer U.S. rules draw more institutional and ETF flows. Gemini cites oversold RSI readings for XRP and SOL and key resistance near $5,000 for ETH as traders watch for a break later in 2026 The post Google’s Gemini AI Predicts the Price of XRP, Ethereum and Solana By the End of 2026 appeared first on Cryptonews.

" I’m more confident than ever that crypto is going to fundamentally rewire the circuitry of finance," said Samani, who will remain chairman of Solana treasury company, Forward Industries.

Convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was involved in Tether co-founder Brock Pierce's love life, among other things.

Bitcoin’s 12-day ETF outflows, derivatives data and the crypto market in tandem trading with tech stocks suggest traders will continue to cut exposure to risk assets. Key takeaways: Heavy outflows from Bitcoin exchange-traded funds and massive liquidations show that the market is purging highly leveraged buyers. Bitcoin options metrics reveal that pro traders are hedging for further price drops amid a tech stock sell-off. Read more

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has signaled a fundamental shift in the blockchain’s roadmap that declares the era of the “branded shard” effectively over. On Feb. 3, Buterin argued that the industry’s previous “rollup-centric” vision no longer makes sense, citing faster scaling on the main Ethereum layer and the sluggish pace of decentralization among major rollups. […] The post Vitalik Buterin takes shot at Coinbase’s corporate control of Base which dominates 60% of layer 2 income appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Speaking on the company's earnings call, CEO Terry Duffy said the exchange is exploring a CME-issued token and is also piloting tokenized cash infrastructure with Google. Chicago-based derivatives exchange CME Group is weighing the launch of its own digital token as it explores how tokenized assets could be used as collateral across financial markets, according to comments from CEO Terry Duffy. Speaking on a company earnings call, Duffy said CME is reviewing different forms of margin, including tokenized cash and a CME-issued token that could operate on a decentralized network. He said: He added that collateral issued by a “systemically important financial institution” may offer greater comfort to market participants than tokens issued by a “third or fourth-tier bank trying to issue a token for margin.” Read more