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Yield-bearing stablecoins will force traditional banks and legacy financial institutions to offer customers real yield on their deposits. Stablecoins, tokenized versions of fiat currencies that move on blockchain rails, will eventually force banks and other financial institutions to offer customers yields on their deposits to remain competitive, according to Patrick Collison, CEO of payments company Stripe. The average interest rate for US savings accounts is 0.40%, and in the EU, the average rate on savings accounts is 0.25%, Collison said in response to VC Nic Carter’s X post outlining the rise of yield-bearing stablecoins and the future of the sector. Collison added: The business imperative here is clear — cheap deposits are great, but being so consumer-hostile feels to me like a losing position,” he continued. Read more
Asset manager VanEck attributed the broad decline in blockchain network revenue in September to lower volatility in the crypto markets. Network revenues across the blockchain ecosystem declined by 16% month-over-month in September, mainly due to reduced volatility in the crypto markets, according to asset manager VanEck. Ethereum network revenue fell by 6%, Solana’s fell by 11%, and the Tron network recorded a 37% reduction in fees, due to a governance proposal that reduced gas fees by over 50% in August, according to VanEck’s report. The revenue drop in the other networks was attributed to reduced volatility in the crypto markets and the underlying tokens powering those networks. Ether (ETH) volatility dropped by 40%, SOL (SOL) volatility fell by 16%, and Bitcoin (BTC) fell by 26% in September. Read more
Crypto treasury companies are already capitalizing on highly volatile digital assets, and tokenizing company shares introduces new risks. Digital asset treasury (DAT) companies that tokenize their stocks on the blockchain compound the risks to investors and their own businesses, according to several crypto industry executives. “Blockchains trade 24/7, whereas traditional markets have specific hours of operation,” Kadan Stadelmann, chief technology officer of the Komodo decentralized exchange platform, told Cointelegraph. Sharp onchain price movements that occur outside of traditional market operating hours could lead to a run on the stock of a treasury company that has issued both tokenized and traditional shares, without the company having sufficient time to respond to a price hit. Read more
Over $500 million in short liquidation pools sit between $2.89 and $2.73, putting XRP at risk of a sharp sell-off if the $3 support is not reclaimed. Key takeaways: XRP risks a 15% drop toward $2.60 if it loses the $3 support. Over $500M in long liquidations below $3 could accelerate the sell-off. Read more
Fully Homomorphic Encryption could unlock trillions in traditional finance for DeFi by enabling private lending, encrypted credit scores and confidential transactions. Opinion by: Jason Delabays, blockchain ecosystem lead at Zama Despite decentralized finance’s (DeFi) recent resurgence, most capital in traditional finance remains out of reach. Most will blame scalability, regulation or poor UX. The real blocker is far more fundamental: a lack of confidentiality. Solve that, and trillions will be unlocked. At its December 2021 peak, DeFi’s total value locked (TVL) hit an incredible $260 billion. Zoom out, however, and that figure starts to feel small, especially when the global financial system moves trillions every day. Foreign exchange alone sees over $7.5 trillion traded daily, and the global bond market’s worth more than $130 trillion. Read more
The $300 billion record stablecoin supply may act as “rocket fuel” for the crypto market, while signaling a growing integration with global finance, industry watchers told Cointelegraph. The record $300 billion stablecoin market capitalization may signal that more investor capital is flowing onchain, which could act as “rocket fuel” for cryptocurrency valuations, according to market analysts. The total stablecoin supply has reached a new record of over $300 billion on Friday, marking a 46.8% year-to-date growth rate that may outpace the previous year’s stablecoin market growth, Cointelegraph reported. The record comes at the start of October, historically the second-best month for Bitcoin (BTC), reinforcing investor optimism around a potential “Uptober” rally. Read more
Sam Bankman-Fried claimed that handing over FTX to its current CEO was the “single biggest mistake” that prevented him from saving the exchange. Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, said his “biggest mistake” during the $8 billion collapse was handing control of the company to new management — a decision he claims cost him a last-minute opportunity to save the firm. Bankman-Fried, once the leader of the $32 billion FTX exchange, is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for seven felony charges related to the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research in November 2022, which resulted in an $8.9 billion loss of investor funds. Looking back at the collapse of FTX, Bankman-Fried’s “biggest mistake” was handing over the leadership of the company to its current CEO, John J. Ray III, on Nov. 11, 2022. Read more
Many major banks anticipate that Bitcoin will rise to as high as $200,000 by year-end, driven by record ETF inflows and capital rotation from gold markets. Key takeaways: Wall Street’s year-end Bitcoin forecasts range from $133,000 to as high as $200,000. Most agree that persistent Bitcoin ETF inflows and gold correlation may shoot BTC to new record highs. Read more
Bitcoin ETFs are the market’s “clearest sentiment barometer,” indicating an incoming breakout for “Uptober,” analysts told Cointelegraph. US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) began the historically bullish month of October with their second-best week of inflows since launch, signaling renewed investor optimism. Spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs recorded $3.24 billion worth of cumulative net positive inflows over the past week, nearly matching their record of $3.38 billion in the week ending Nov. 22, 2024, according to data from SoSoValue. The figure marks a sharp rebound from the previous week’s $902 million in outflows. Analysts attributed the turnaround to growing expectations of another US interest rate cut, which has improved sentiment toward risk assets. Read more
Crypto venture capitalists are a “lot more careful” and not just jumping on every hot narrative, says a Bullish Capital Management executive. Crypto venture capitalists are dialing back their risk appetite, avoiding the hot flavor of the month and applying a more critical lens to investments, according to Bullish Capital Management director Sylvia To. “VCs are a lot more careful now. It’s not just a narrative play. Before you could throw a check and say, Oh, there’s another L1 but it’s going to be an Ethereum killer,” To told Cointelegraph during a sit-down interview at Token2049 in Singapore. “Then subsequently, you saw all these new chains forming,” she said, explaining that the market became fragmented and a lot of funds were being deployed to new layer 1s and new infrastructure, which isn’t viable anymore. Read more
The Bitcoin four-year cycle is driven more by "human emotion" and will likely continue to play out in “some form,” according to a crypto executive. While Bitcoin’s four-year cycle may not play out exactly as it has in the past, that doesn’t mean the concept is entirely dead, according to a crypto executive. “I think when it comes to the four-year cycle, the reality is that it’s very likely that we’ll continue to see some form of a cycle,” crypto exchange Gemini’s head of APAC region, Saad Ahmed, told Cointelegraph during a sit-down interview at Token2049 in Singapore. “It ultimately stems from people get really excited and overextend themselves, and then you kind of see a crash, and then it kind of corrects to an equilibrium,” Ahmed said. Read more
Crypto exchange Coinbase is pursuing a National Trust Company Charter in the US, but said it has "no intention of becoming a bank." Crypto exchange Coinbase has applied for a National Trust Company Charter with the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), joining a growing number of US-based crypto companies pursuing the same license. “Coinbase is taking a significant step in expanding our business capabilities and regulatory oversight beyond the existing framework, paving the way for innovation and growth in building a modern financial system powered by digital assets,” Coinbase said in a statement on Friday. According to Coinbase, pursuing the license is part of its strategy “to bridge the gap between the crypto economy and traditional financial system.” However, it has no interest in changing the core focus of its operations: Read more
Bitcoin rallied close to $124,000 as surging US demand for BTC, shifting Federal Reserve monetary policy and hopes for a bullish Q4 lifted investor sentiment. Key takeaways: Bitcoin rallied 14% in a week, eyeing $124,000 amid a US government shutdown. Onchain data showed a $1.6 billion surge in buying and a Coinbase premium gap of $92, signaling US-led demand. Read more
As stablecoins pass $300 billion market cap, Paxos Labs’ Bhau Kotecha says AI agents could turn market fragmentation into an advantage by routing liquidity to top issuers. The next wave of stablecoin adoption may not be led by people at all. Paxos Labs’ co-founder says AI agents could become the “X-factor,” instantly shifting liquidity to the most efficient issuers and turning market fragmentation into an advantage. With clearer regulations around stablecoins passing in the United States, the stablecoin market has surged past $300 billion, becoming one of crypto’s central narratives. However, fragmentation across issuers and jurisdictions remains a challenge. As new entrants join an increasingly diverse field — from dollar-backed leaders like Tether and Circle, to synthetic assets like Athena, and PayPal’s PYUSD, which targets consumer payments — questions have arisen over whether fragmentation could pose a problem to the industry. Read more
The plaintiffs failed to show how Bored Ape Yacht Club and other NFTs represent investment contracts under the SEC's 3-pronged Howey Test. A US judge has dismissed an investor lawsuit against Web3 company Yuga Labs, ruling that the case failed to show non-fungible tokens (NFTs) meet the legal definition of securities. Judge Fernando M. Olguin ruled the plaintiffs did not demonstrate how Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), ApeCoin (APE) or other NFTs sold by Yuga satisfied the three conditions of the Howey test, a standard used by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to determine whether a transaction qualifies as an investment contract. The lawsuit was originally filed in 2022. Yuba Labs marketed its NFTs as digital collectibles with membership perks to an exclusive club, making them consumables rather than investment contracts, Olguin said. He wrote: The judge also said the plaintiffs failed to show that the Bored Ape Yacht Club and other NFT collections launched by Yuga are a “common enterprise” with the e...
Shares of Nasdaq-listed miner CleanSpark rose more than 5% Friday after the company reported higher September production. Bitcoin miner CleanSpark ended September with 13,011 BTC in its treasury after reporting year-over-year gains in efficiency and output. The company said monthly production rose 27% from September 2024, with 629 Bitcoin (BTC) mined, and sold 445 BTC for roughly $48.7 million at an average price of $109,568. In its Friday update, CleanSpark said that fleet efficiency improved 26% year over year, while its average operating hashrate for the month was 45.6 EH/s. CleanSpark has been selling part of its monthly Bitcoin production since April as part of a push to become financially self-sufficient. It also opened an institutional Bitcoin trading desk to facilitate sales. In August, the company generated $60.7 million from the sale of 533.5 BTC. Read more
Ethereum Foundation sells 1,000 ETH via CoW Swap for stablecoins to support research, grants and DeFi funding as part of its treasury strategy. The Ethereum Foundation (EF) announced plans to convert 1,000 Ether (ETH) into stablecoins to finance research, grants and donations, aligning with its broader treasury strategy and involvement in funding decentralized finance (DeFi) initiatives. The sale, worth approximately $4.5 million at current prices, was executed via CoW Swap, a decentralized trading protocol that aggregates liquidity across multiple exchanges to offer users competitive prices without relying on a centralized intermediary. Neither the foundation’s announcement nor its treasury policy specified which stablecoins it would receive in exchange for the ETH. Read more
An FDIC meeting will follow up on acting chair Travis Hill’s statements that he would support Trump’s executive order targeting “politicized or unlawful debanking activities.” The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s board of directors is set to discuss proposed rules that could impact crypto firms amid allegations of debanking. In a Thursday notice, the FDIC said its board would consider a notice of proposed rulemaking “regarding prohibition on use of reputation risk by regulators.” Though the agenda did not explicitly mention debanking concerns tied to digital assets, acting FDIC chair Travis Hill has previously criticized regulators for using “reputation risk” as justification to prevent some banks from engaging in crypto activities, such as allowing clients to send funds to exchanges. US President Donald Trump used the term in an August executive order “guaranteeing free banking,” claiming that having regulators access reputation risk could result in “politicized or unlawful debanking.” The order did n...
Ether’s chances of breaking above $5,000 depend on institutional accumulation, but rising competition and muted derivatives metrics keep investor sentiment restrained. Key takeaways: Ethereum’s $100 billion TVL leadership contrasts with falling activity, as competitors gain traction through lower fees. Institutional accumulation via spot ETFs and corporate reserves may trigger an Ether supply shock above $5,000. Read more
Vietnam is one of the leading countries for crypto adoption in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region and ranks number four globally, according to Chainalysis. The State Bank of Vietnam, the country’s central bank, anticipates credit growth of about 20% in 2025, a move that could see liquidity flow into global crypto markets amid rising adoption in the region. Pham Thanh Ha, deputy governor of the central bank, said Friday that interest rates need to be slashed further to encourage economic growth and mitigate the uncertainty from US-imposed tariffs, according to Reuters. Vietnam’s government legalized cryptocurrencies in June as part of broader technology regulation, which categorized cryptocurrencies as either virtual assets representing real-world tokenized products or crypto assets like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). Read more6933 items