Category: Peer to Peer

Trading in stocks and commodities through cryptocurrency platforms surged to about $778 billion in August, underscoring the rapid expansion of traditional-market products on venues built originally for digital assets.The total reflects a sharp rise in activity across perpetual futures and other products linked to equities, precious metals and commodities, as major crypto exchanges broadened their offerings beyond Bitcoin, Ether and other tokens. August data showed stock perpetual futures alone generated about $665.42 billion on centralised crypto exchanges, up 4.6 per

Bitcoin jumped about 5% to around $81,000 on Thursday as a sharp rebound forced leveraged traders betting on lower cryptocurrency prices to close positions, accelerating gains across the digital-asset market.The move lifted the world’s largest cryptocurrency back towards the upper end of its August trading range after it had spent much of the day around $77,000-$78,000. Market data showed heavy short-side liquidations as Bitcoin pushed through resistance near $80,000, although the widely circulated claim that about $140 million in crypto

Polymarket has formally opened perpetual futures trading across cryptocurrencies, stocks, equity indices and commodities, adding leveraged directional trading to a platform best known for prediction markets.The international Polymarket platform is offering leverage of up to 20 times on eligible perpetual contracts, allowing traders to take long or short positions without a fixed expiry date. Its live perpetual-futures pages list markets tied to Bitcoin, Ether, major technology shares, the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, gold, silver and crude oil.Polymarket’s website showed 67

Standard Chartered has begun offering institutional clients spot trading in Bitcoin and Ether through its Dubai International Financial Centre entity, extending its regulated digital-asset business in the UAE from custody into trade execution.The bank said on Thursday the service makes it the first global systemically important bank to provide institutional digital-asset spot trading in the UAE. Eligible clients can trade the two largest cryptocurrencies through Standard Chartered’s established electronic channels and foreign-exchange interfaces, rather than using a separate crypto-native platform.The

Russia’s new federal framework regulating cryptocurrency circulation took effect on Tuesday across the country's financial sector, establishing a supervised domestic market for digital assets while retaining a ban on cryptocurrency payments inside the country.Federal Law No. 282-FZ entered into force on September 1 after President Vladimir Putin signed it on August 4. The State Duma approved the legislation on July 21 and the Federation Council endorsed it three days later.The law creates rules for cryptocurrency exchanges, digital depositories, brokers, asset

European Central Bank Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel has called for central bank money to become a native programmable asset on distributed-ledger platforms, arguing that smart contracts could make monetary policy operations faster and more flexible as finance becomes tokenised.Speaking at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium on August 28, Schnabel said central banks need to extend their operational reach into tokenised markets rather than leave settlement dependent on private forms of money. Her remarks went beyond simply connecting existing

A US high-school student has made about $20,000 by selling a Telegram digital collectible awarded for his performance at this month’s International Olympiad in Informatics.Telegram founder Pavel Durov said Jonathan He, who won a gold medal and finished seventh overall at IOI 2026, sold his Algorithm Cup for 15,000 Grams, valuing the transaction at roughly $20,000. The collectible was among a limited set distributed to medal-winning young programmers after the competition in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.Durov said the sum was meaningful for

Russia’s largest lender Sberbank is preparing to expand corporate lending secured by cryptocurrencies, with plans to accept Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether’s USDT as collateral once the country’s new digital-asset rules take full effect and regulators permit the assets’ public circulation.Anatoly Popov, deputy chairman of Sberbank’s management board, said the bank intends to continue developing loans backed by digital assets and broaden the collateral it accepts beyond Bitcoin. Ethereum and USDT are expected to be added after the Bank of Russia

Polkadot’s DOT token fell below $0.85 on Saturday as selling pressure returned after a brief August rebound, leaving the cryptocurrency struggling to reclaim the psychologically important $1 level despite favourable network decentralisation metrics.DOT was trading near $0.84, down about 4 per cent over 24 hours and roughly 9 per cent over seven days. Its market value stood near $1.42 billion, with about 1.7 billion tokens circulating. The decline followed a rally that briefly carried DOT above $1 on August 22

Ripple is moving ahead with a four-phase programme to prepare the XRP Ledger for post-quantum cryptography, targeting a transition to quantum-resistant signatures by 2028 while testing security mechanisms before a large-scale quantum threat becomes practical.The roadmap, set out by Ripple in April and detailed by its engineering team, is designed to protect accounts and transactions if powerful quantum computers eventually become capable of breaking the elliptic-curve cryptography now used across blockchain networks. Ripple says the work is being treated

JPMorgan Chase has evaluated launching its own stablecoin as major banks reconsider their approach to blockchain-based money amid growing demand for digital payments and clearer US regulation.The deliberations mark a potential shift for the world’s largest bank by market capitalisation, which has so far concentrated on tokenised bank deposits rather than issuing a conventional stablecoin. JPMorgan already operates JPM Coin, a dollar-denominated deposit token designed for institutional clients, but that product is structurally different from stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT

Claims that outgoing White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed a Donald Trump-branded “Golden Token” can be exchanged at Bank of America for $3 million have no substantiated basis, with official government information and the bank’s published material showing no such redemption programme exists.The allegation has circulated through social-media and messaging accounts promoting purported Trump Golden Tokens as an extraordinary wealth opportunity. Some posts claim holders can take the tokens to Bank of America and receive millions of dollars, while

Bitcoin climbed back above $79,000 on Monday, extending a powerful rebound that has restored bullish momentum after weeks of pressure across cryptocurrency markets. The world’s largest digital asset briefly traded around $79,200 before encountering resistance near the psychologically important $80,000 level.The move capped a sharp recovery from levels near $63,400 earlier in the week, representing a gain of more than 20% from the trough. Bitcoin subsequently fluctuated below its intraday peak as traders assessed whether fresh demand would be

The US Treasury is considering tapping its roughly $950 billion cash balance to support purchases of longer-dated government bonds, potentially giving Secretary Scott Bessent greater scope to counter pressure in the Treasury market.The Treasury General Account, or TGA, is being treated as a possible source of cash for purchases of off-the-run securities, although officials have not specified how much could be deployed or when a decision might be announced. The account is the federal government’s main operating cash account at

Bitcoin held close to $78,000 on Monday after its strongest weekly advance in more than three years, while gold climbed to a three-month high and major alternative cryptocurrencies paused after sharp gains.The largest cryptocurrency was trading around $77,000-$78,000 after gaining about 23% over the week ended August 23. Bitcoin briefly rose above $79,000 during the surge, its highest level in roughly three months, before profit-taking and a cooling of leveraged buying slowed the advance.The rally accelerated after the US

Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun’s individual claims against World Liberty Financial are set to remain before a California federal court after a hearing over the crypto venture’s attempt to shift substantial parts of the dispute into private arbitration.US District Judge James Donato heard arguments on August 20 in the Northern District of California over World Liberty Financial’s motion to compel arbitration and stay portions of the lawsuit. Sun characterised the hearing as a significant procedural victory, saying his personal claims would

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael S. Selig has instructed agency staff to prepare a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency markets that could be advanced if Congress fails to enact the Clarity Act, signalling that the regulator will not allow the legislative impasse to leave digital assets without clearer rules.Selig outlined the approach on Thursday as the CFTC convened the inaugural meeting of its Innovation Advisory Committee in Washington, where cryptocurrency regulation, artificial intelligence and prediction markets dominated the agenda. He

CoinShares has expanded the mandate of its WGMI exchange-traded fund beyond bitcoin mining, giving investors exposure to artificial intelligence data centres, power infrastructure and high-performance computing as miners increasingly reposition their energy-heavy businesses around AI.The Nasdaq-listed fund was renamed the CoinShares Bitcoin Mining and Digital Power ETF on August 18, replacing its former CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF identity while retaining the WGMI ticker. The change substantially broadens the companies that can enter its portfolio and reflects the accelerating convergence between

Bitcoin climbed above $75,000 on Friday, extending a sharp advance fuelled by improving liquidity conditions, heavy short-covering and renewed optimism over cryptocurrency regulation in the United States.The world’s largest cryptocurrency traded around $75,400 during early Asian hours after reclaiming the level for the first time since late May. Bitcoin gained about 8% over 24 hours and roughly 19% over the week, marking one of its strongest short-term advances of 2026.Ether also strengthened, rising close to 5% to around $2,376,

Bitcoin surged more than 6% on Wednesday, breaking above $68,000 as a sharp retreat in US Treasury yields revived demand for risk assets and forced heavily leveraged traders betting against cryptocurrencies to close their positions.The world's largest cryptocurrency traded around $68,500 after briefly climbing above $69,000, reaching its highest level in nearly three months. The move marked Bitcoin's strongest percentage gain since March and extended a recovery from levels near $64,000 earlier in the day.The rapid advance triggered more

Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has stopped using a closely watched public cryptocurrency wallet after ordinary token-cleaning transactions triggered heavy speculation, sharp meme-coin price swings and opportunistic trading.Zhao said the wallet had become overwhelmed by unsolicited meme coins sent by token creators and traders, making it difficult even to locate his BNB holdings while he was testing Trust Wallet. Attempts to remove unwanted tokens by sending them to burn addresses only intensified scrutiny because traders interpreted each transaction as

Harmony is moving towards rolling back its blockchain after an attacker exploited weaknesses in the network to create billions of unauthorised ONE tokens, forcing developers to halt parts of the system and coordinate an emergency response with validators and cryptocurrency exchanges.The Layer-1 blockchain has identified block 92,730,034, recorded on August 11 at 23:25:37 UTC, as the proposed point to which the network would be restored. Harmony is coordinating with validators and exchanges on the rollback approach after deploying fixes designed

Standard Chartered has initiated coverage of Chainlink’s LINK token with a price forecast of $200 by the end of 2030, betting that rapid expansion in tokenised assets and decentralised finance will sharply increase demand for the blockchain network’s infrastructure.The projection implies an increase of roughly 25 times from the price near $8 used when the forecast was prepared. The bank has set an interim target of $13 for the end of 2026, followed by $41 in 2027, $82 in

Zerohash is preparing to submit a narrower application for a US national trust bank charter after regulators returned its first filing without reaching a decision, creating a regulatory setback for the digital-asset infrastructure provider that powers cryptocurrency trading for Morgan Stanley’s E*Trade platform.The Chicago-based company expects to refile with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency by the end of August, restructuring its proposal around a more focused range of trust activities. Zerohash has said the return was