Found 5789 news
Malta has sought to lead the way in EU crypto regulation, though early leadership has not come without its challenges. Malta’s cryptocurrency market regulator said that none of the local licenses issued under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) are at risk following a recent peer review by European Union regulators. “No MiCA license in Malta is at risk of revocation or re-evaluation as a result of the peer review outcomes,” a spokesperson for the MFSA told Cointelegraph, adding that the authority has already started addressing the issues identified in the review. The statement came after the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), Europe’s primary supervisory body overseeing MiCA compliance, on Thursday released a peer review on certain MiCA authorization gaps by Malta’s Financial Services Authority (MFSA). Read more
The Vatican Bank has denied any link to a suspicious crypto project offering fake memberships and token sales through a fraudulent “Vatican Chamber of Trade.” The Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR), commonly known as the Vatican Bank, has denied any connection to a fake cryptocurrency project claiming ties to it. The fake token, dubbed Vatican Chamber Token (VCT), was promoted on an online phishing scam website claiming to offer a “formal invitation to join one of the world’s most exclusive economic institutions.” The promoters said the “Vatican Chamber of Trade” was accepting new applicants “for the first time in a generation.” The website goes as far as to include the real number of the Vatican Bank on its website. A representative of the Vatican Bank confirmed during a call with Cointelegraph that the project “is a scam,” and denied any affiliation with it. Read more
Running a Lightning Network node in 2025 can generate passive Bitcoin income, but success depends on capital, uptime and dynamic fee strategies. The Lightning Network is Bitcoin’s most successful second-layer solution, a protocol built to handle rapid, ultra-low-cost transactions without clogging the main blockchain. By linking users through a mesh of bidirectional payment channels — essentially offchain smart contracts secured by the Bitcoin blockchain — it allows participants to send and receive funds instantly. The network settles only when a channel is closed, minimizing onchain load and maximizing speed. Read more
China’s Chang’an blockchain hits 100K TPS — but don’t mention “crypto”, Japan’s Minna Bank looks to issue stablecoins on Solana, Asia Express Beijings state media is rallying behind Changan Chain, a homegrown blockchain infrastructure hailed as a solution to Chinas root problem of digital sovereignty. A profile on Qianlong.com credits researcher Dong Jin and his team for building a fully open-source and state-backed blockchain stack now powering national digital projects. Though little-known outside China, Changan Chain has gone through 21 iterations over six years and now claims to handle over 100,000 transactions per second a benchmark often cited by next-generation blockchains aiming to match the scale of traditional financial networks. It is reportedly being used in Chinas nationwide real estate registration system and by companies to digitize supply contracts, allowing banks to verify supplier relationships and accelerate loan approvals. Read more
SUI broke out of an inverse head-and-shoulders pattern, opening the door for a rally to $3.89. Key points: SUI broke above a bullish pattern, opening the gates for a potential rally to $3.89. Bitcoin (BTC) surged to a new all-time high on Thursday, and the bullish sentiment has rubbed off on select altcoins. One such altcoin is Sui (SUI), which rallied 11.3% to $3.41. Read more
Jonathan Gould will return to the OCC as Comptroller of the Currency to serve a five-year term following his nomination by US President Donald Trump. Jonathan Gould, who previously worked as the chief legal officer of blockchain infrastructure company Bitfury, has been confirmed as the head of the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) following a Senate vote. In a 50-45 vote in the US Senate on Thursday, a majority of lawmakers voted to confirm Gould to head the banking regulator. In addition to his work at Bitfury, Gould is a partner at the Cleveland-based law firm Jones Day and served as the OCC’s senior deputy comptroller and chief counsel from 2018 to 2021. Gould’s nomination was the latest from US President Donald Trump to be addressed by the Senate since the president took office in January. The chamber has previously voted to confirm Trump’s pick to head the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Paul Atkins, and is expected to take up a vote for Brian Quintenz to chair the Commodity Futur...
Nicholas Truglia was initially sentenced to 18 months behind bars for carrying out SIM-swapping attacks against crypto investors. Nicholas Truglia, a crypto scammer convicted in 2022 and initially sentenced to 18 months in prison, had his sentence extended to 12 years on Thursday for failure to pay back a victim he targeted in 2018. Truglia failed to pay over $20 million in restitution to crypto investor and CEO of the public relations company Transform Group, Michael Terpin, according to Bloomberg. “At sentencing, Mr. Truglia demonstrated a willingness to repay his victim the entire amount stolen,” Judge Alvin Hellerstein wrote in a July 2 order. The order also read: Read more
Ether price rallied to $3,000, but the key components needed to hold the level are still missing. Key takeaways: ETH futures and options markets show hesitation despite spot ETF inflows and rising TVL figures. Layer-2 growth and lower fees haven’t translated to increased demand for ETH or sustained price momentum. Read more
Ignoring the reduced customer acquisition costs made possible by AI places businesses at a significant disadvantage, O'Leary said. Artificial intelligence significantly reduces the cost of new customer acquisition, and any company neglecting AI is not a worthwhile investment, according to investor and television personality Kevin O’Leary. In an interview with Cointelegraph, O’Leary said that new-customer acquisition, which is primarily done through content creation and multimedia marketing, has been “the highest cost increase in the last 36 months.” “When you look at the cost of creation of that content, it has more than quadrupled. In some cases, it’s 10x,” he said before adding that AI has reduced content production costs by 60%. Read more
Bitcoin's market structure and the recent rally to new highs suggest an accelerated phase of price discovery has just begun. Key point: Bitcoin’s momentum continues to accelerate above $113,000, leading traders to predict a rally to $150,000. Bitcoin (BTC) made a new all-time high above $113,788 on Thursday, and several analysts expect the uptrend to continue. 10x Research head Markus Thielen told Cointelegraph that BTC has a 60% probability of rising more than 20% in the next two months. Read more
The Tornado Cash co-founder is scheduled to go to trial on Monday, but his defense attorneys are still waiting on rulings for motions over witnesses in the case. Attorneys representing Tornado Cash co-founder and developer Roman Storm have suggested they may request a brief continuance for his criminal trial if a judge denies a motion to exclude a particular witness. In a Thursday filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Storm’s legal team moved to exclude testimony from an unnamed witness who is the “claimed perpetrator of an alleged hack who allegedly used Tornado Cash.” His attorneys argued that prosecutors disclosed the witness after a scheduled deadline, also claiming their testimony could be “highly prejudicial” to Storm. “[The testimony] would be unfairly prejudicial as it would likely confuse and mislead the jurors into believing that Mr. Storm was involved in the underlying purported hack or intended to facilitate it, which is not true,” said the Thursday filing. ...
Social engineering scams, from the Meeten campaign to fake crypto support scams, have become a troubling occurrence in crypto. Threat actors are using an elaborate social engineering scheme to target crypto users and drain their wallets, according to a Thursday report from cybersecurity company Darktrace. The company wrote that the techniques are similar to those used by “Traffer Groups,” which use malware to steal credentials and data. The social engineering scheme involves gaining the trust of users by posing as representatives from fake startup companies in the industries of AI, gaming, Web3 and social media. Compromised X accounts are often involved, and the threat actors supplement the fraud with Medium articles and GitHub entries. “Each campaign typically starts with a victim being contacted through X messages, Telegram or Discord,” the report reads. “A fake employee of the company will contact a victim asking to test out their software in exchange for a cryptocurrency payment.” Read more
Coinbase market data will power the AI “answer engine” in a two-phase rollout, starting with COIN50 index prices. On Thursday, the CEO of Coinbase Global (Nasdaq: COIN), Brian Armstrong, announced a partnership with Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine that answers users’ questions with cited, real-time data pulled from the web. According to Armstrong, the move will integrate the crypto exchange’s market data into Perplexity’s large language model (LLM), further connecting AI and crypto and helping users make more informed decisions about digital assets. The partnership is being rolled out in two stages. Starting Thursday, Perplexity will pull market data from Coinbase, including from its COIN50 index, to power “market analysis” in Perplexity’s new Comet browser. Read more
Soaring capital inflows and an uptick in Bitcoin wallets identified as “accumulators” suggest BTC price is on a path to $130,900. Key takeaways: Bitcoin rallied to $113,800 as onchain data shows a 71% surge in the BTC holdings of accumulator addresses. Bitcoin’s MVRV metric suggests that meaningful profit-taking may not begin until BTC hits $130,900. Read more
Ether price chases $3,000 as trading sentiment turns bullish amid multiple corporate ETH treasury announcements. Key point: An ETH treasury purchase by SharpLink Gaming boosted investor sentiment, clearing the path for a potential rally to $3,153. Ether (ETH) price entered a strong uptrend this week, leading many analysts to predict a rally to $3,000 before the end of July. These traders cite an uptick in spot ETH ETF inflows and multiple corporate Ether treasury announcements as a primary factor in the recent bullish momentum. Read more
While headlines focus on giants like Strategy and Tesla, companies like Aker ASA, Méliuz and Rumble have quietly added BTC to their balance sheets. While companies like Strategy and Tesla made headlines, many others have discreetly added Bitcoin to their treasuries. Firms use Bitcoin to hedge against inflation, fiat devaluation and macroeconomic shocks. Its fixed supply, digital scarcity and 24/7 liquidity make it appealing. Firms like Arkham and Glassnode trace Bitcoin ownership through address clustering and timing correlation. Read more
Bitcoin price set new highs above $113,800 as stablecoin reserves surged and retail investor-driven selling subsided. Key takeaways: Bitcoin price hit new highs as a stablecoin liquidity metric pointed to fresh capital flowing into BTC. Retail investor inflows dropped while Binance’s market share surged past 49%, highlighting institutional investors’ role in driving the rally. Read more
The hearing notice suggested a focus on a tax framework for digital assets, but did not mention specific witnesses or policies previously proposed. Lawmakers in the US House of Representatives are scheduled to hold a hearing on a crypto tax policy framework as part of Republicans’ push to consider bills on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), stablecoins and market structure. In a Wednesday notice, leadership on the House Committee on Ways and Means and Oversight Subcommittee said they had scheduled a July 16 hearing to focus on “affirmative steps needed to place a tax policy framework on digital assets.” The event, “ensuring digital asset policy built for the 21st century,” will come as House representatives are expected to vote on three crypto-related bills. It was unclear at the time of publication what witnesses would be invited to testify at the hearing. The US Senate Banking Committee discussed market structure legislation on Wednesday, hearing from Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Blockchain Associati...
Gates Inc. and Oasys’s partnership is one of Japan’s largest real estate tokenization projects, with phase 1 aiming to expand liquidity to $34 billion. Japanese real estate investment firm Gates Inc. will tokenize $75 million worth of central Tokyo properties on the Oasys blockchain, marking one of the country’s largest real estate tokenization initiatives to date. The partnership, announced Wednesday, represents a major step for both companies. Gates plans to eventually tokenize over $200 billion in assets — about 1% of Japan’s real estate market — while Oasys continues expanding beyond its gaming roots into real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. Gates, which generated $145 million in 2024 revenue and was listed on the Financial Times’ “High-Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2023” list, is currently conducting a Nasdaq roadshow after filing its F-1 prospectus. Read more
US President Donald Trump and members of his administration have pushed for the passing of the GENIUS Act, which would regulate stablecoins in the US. The United States views dollar-pegged stablecoins as a tool to help reverse the decline of the dollar’s status as a global reserve currency, according to a new report from digital asset banking group Sygnum. To accelerate that goal, the current administration is encouraging the growth of the stablecoin market and urging Congress to pass related legislation. The insights come from Sygnum’s latest report examining the dollar’s standing as a reserve currency and the US government’s efforts to preserve that. US President Donald Trump and key members of his administration, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and AI and David Sacks, Trump’s “Crypto and AI Czar,” who leads the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, are pushing for the swift passing of the GENIUS Act, which regulates stablecoins and their issuers in the United States. The Act...5789 items