Any rollout would still require strict affordability and suitability checks, and crypto activity would need FCA authorization, Gambling Commission executive Tim Miller said. The United Kingdom’s Gambling Commission is exploring how cryptocurrency could be used for payments at licensed online casinos, as the country prepares to bring more crypto activity under a new regulatory regime led by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Tim Miller, the commission’s executive director for research and policy, said Thursday that the regulator wants to examine “the potential path forward” for allowing “cryptoasset to be used as a consumer payment option for licensed and regulated gambling in Great Britain.” Miller made the remarks at the Betting and Gaming Council’s annual general meeting in London, according to his published speech. Companies carrying out regulated crypto activities will require authorization by the FCA under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) when the new regime commences, Miller said. ...
Sentient launched Arena, a production-style platform to test AI agents on enterprise tasks, with Pantera and Franklin Templeton joining the initial cohort. Pantera Capital and Franklin Templeton’s digital assets units have joined the first cohort of Arena, a new testing environment from open-source AI lab Sentient that is designed to evaluate how AI agents perform in enterprise-style workflows. In a Friday announcement shared with Cointelegraph, Sentient positioned Arena as a production-style benchmarking platform rather than a static model test. Instead of scoring agents on fixed datasets alone, it runs them through standardized tasks modeled on enterprise conditions, including long documents, incomplete information and conflicting sources. “In this initial phase, participation refers to supporting the Arena program and developer cohort,” Oleg Golev, product lead at Sentient Labs, told Cointelegraph. Read more
The ruling keeps pre‑2019 investor claims in open court and rejects Binance’s bid to send the dispute to private arbitration in Singapore. A United States federal judge ruled that Binance cannot force a group of US customers to arbitrate claims over losses on crypto tokens they bought on its global platform before Feb. 20, 2019, keeping a major class action in open court. The decision on Thursday by District Judge Andrew Carter Jr. in the Southern District of New York held that those claims were not bound by Binance.com’s 2019 arbitration clause because users lacked sufficient notice when the company unilaterally shifted its terms of use away from the 2017 version, which contained no arbitration or class action waiver provisions. According to the judge, Binance relied on a general change‑of‑terms clause and the posting of updated 2019 terms on its website, and there was no evidence that the exchange provided any individual notice or formally “announced” the new arbitration provision to users. Read more
Bitcoin bulls were battling to flip three resistance levels back into support by the end of the week, but history shows they may need to wait another month. Bitcoin (BTC) is battling three key resistance levels at once, and the end of the bear market may depend on breaking them in March. Key takeaways: Bitcoin still faces three resistance levels on the weekly chart after its midweek gains. Read more
The top eight wallets on Polymarket netted over $1.2 million by betting on ZachXBT’s investigation into Axiom, raising insider trading concerns among blockchain researchers. A small group of crypto wallets won more than $1.2 million betting on a Polymarket contract tied to an onchain investigation into decentralized finance (DeFi) trading platform Axiom, fueling fresh concerns that prediction markets can reward people with advance knowledge of market-moving disclosures. The eight most profitable wallets on the market collectively made about $1.2 million, according to trading data compiled on Dune. The same dataset showed more than 50 wallets posting combined losses of roughly $1.23 million, while two wallets lost about $366,000. Eight out of the top 10 wallets are likely insider addresses, judging by their onchain transaction patterns, according to onchain researcher Defioasis. “There are 3 addresses that achieved profits exceeding $100,000, all of which are insider addresses that traded only this single mark...