Category: Peer to Peer

Ethereum hovered near the $2,000 mark on Thursday after a choppy stretch that left the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency caught between stronger long-term supply dynamics and a fresh wave of geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty. Ether was trading around $2,178 during the session, after moving within an intraday range of roughly $2,167 to $2,264, underscoring the tight consolidation that has kept traders focused on whether the token can build momentum above a psychologically important threshold.The hesitation in price has come even

Polygon’s token remained under pressure on Thursday even as the network’s stablecoin business gathered pace, highlighting a widening gap between on-chain usage growth and investor sentiment around POL, the token that replaced MATIC on Polygon’s mainnet in September 2024. POL was down about 4.7% over seven days on CoinGecko as of April 9, while Polygon continued to market itself as infrastructure for global payments and stablecoin settlement.That tension has sharpened after reports that Polygon Labs is seeking between $50

Tokenised perpetual swaps tied to commodities and equities have surged into a new phase of growth, with weekly trading volume reaching about $31 billion as oil volatility and broader macro uncertainty pulled traders towards round-the-clock synthetic exposure. Oil contracts accounted for roughly $6.9 billion of that weekly turnover after geopolitical tensions rattled energy markets, while stock perpetual swaps climbed 908% to around $4.9 billion, underscoring how quickly crypto-native derivatives are expanding beyond digital assets.The move matters because it signals

Embedded banking is moving financial services out of the bank branch and bank app and into the software people and companies already use, reshaping how accounts, cards, payments and credit are distributed across the economy. What began as an extension of embedded payments has matured into a broader model in which regulated banks provide the licensed infrastructure while technology platforms control the customer experience, a shift that is opening new revenue lines for lenders while forcing tougher scrutiny of risk,

UBS and five other banks in Switzerland have joined Swiss Stablecoin AG to test potential uses for a Swiss franc stablecoin, marking one of the clearest signs yet that established lenders in the country want a bigger role in tokenised finance. The initiative, announced on Wednesday, creates a live sandbox rather than a full public launch, meaning the project remains in a controlled testing phase through 2026.That distinction matters because a viral social-media post overstated the development. The underlying

XRP climbed sharply alongside Bitcoin, but the advance has yet to settle the bigger question hanging over the token: whether this is the start of a durable reversal or another rally inside a broader weak trend. Market data over the past week showed Bitcoin regaining ground towards the $70,000 mark, while XRP posted gains of about 5% at one stage before slipping back, reflecting stronger risk appetite across digital assets but also lingering caution among traders.The move appears to

 Strategy has bought another 4,871 Bitcoin for $329.9 million, extending the company’s long-running cryptocurrency accumulation plan and taking its total holdings to 766,970 BTC as of April 5, according to a regulatory filing released on April 6. The company said the latest purchases were made at an average price of $67,718 per Bitcoin, lifting its aggregate spend on the token to about $58.02 billion since it began buying in 2020.The filing also corrects an important point about how the purchase

 Bitcoin pushed back above the $70,000 mark on Monday, offering a measure of relief to a market that has been battered by volatility, geopolitical tension and doubts over whether institutional buying is strong enough to absorb selling by large holders. The move was modest rather than decisive, with live pricing showing bitcoin at about $69,728 on Tuesday in Asia after an intraday high of $70,240, underscoring how fragile the rebound remains.What has caught traders’ attention is not only the price

Tokenisation of financial assets could pull some of the crypto market’s most destabilising traits into mainstream finance, the International Monetary Fund has warned, saying the same technology that promises faster settlement and lower costs may also magnify volatility, fragment liquidity and leave regulators with less time to respond in a crisis. The IMF set out the warning in an April note by Tobias Adrian, its financial counsellor, which described tokenised finance as a structural shift in market plumbing rather than

Polymarket has unveiled what it calls a full exchange upgrade, setting out plans to rebuild the core plumbing of its prediction market, launch a native collateral token and strengthen the systems it uses to turn disputed outcomes into settled trades. The move comes as the company, widely discussed at a roughly $20 billion valuation, positions itself for a broader push into the United States and for a bigger role in finance and media.The overhaul is more than a routine

Justin Bieber’s headline-grabbing purchase of a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT for about $1.3 million in January 2022 has become one of the clearest symbols of how sharply the NFT market has deflated, with comparable pricing for the collection now hovering around $11,000 to $12,000. The singer bought Bored Ape #3001 for 500 ether at a time when digital collectibles were commanding extraordinary sums, fuelled by celebrity endorsements, easy money and a broader speculative frenzy across crypto markets.Bieber’s million-dollar ape

Solana’s effort to prepare for a future quantum-computing threat is exposing a basic tension for high-speed blockchains: the safer the signature system becomes, the heavier and slower it is likely to be. That trade-off has moved into sharper focus as Bitcoin developers debate draft quantum-safe address proposals, Ethereum’s post-quantum team lays out a multi-year migration plan, and new research from Google and outside experts brings forward the timetable under discussion for so-called “Q-day”.At the centre of Solana’s approach is

Kalshi’s push to keep offering sports-linked prediction contracts in Nevada suffered another setback on 3 April, when Carson City District Court Judge Jason Woodbury said he would grant a preliminary injunction preventing the New York-based platform from operating in the state without a gaming licence. The judge said the contracts were effectively no different from conventional sports betting, extending an earlier temporary restraining order through 17 April while the longer-term injunction is finalised.Woodbury’s remarks went to the centre of

Artificial intelligence is lowering the cost of cyberattacks across the digital-asset industry and forcing crypto firms to rethink how they protect users, wallets and transaction systems, according to Ledger chief technology officer Charles Guillemet, whose warning lands as the sector grapples with a fresh cycle of major breaches and more sophisticated fraud.Guillemet said AI is making hacks “cheaper and faster”, amplifying a security problem that has long shadowed crypto markets even as the industry promotes decentralisation, self-custody and transparent

Ether traded just above the $2,000 mark on Sunday, holding a level that traders have treated as a key psychological floor, while BitMine Immersion Technologies’ continued accumulation of the token added to a broader argument that institutional buyers still see value in the market after a bruising first quarter.The second-largest cryptocurrency by market value was priced at about $2,055 in Sunday trading, little changed on the day after moving between roughly $2,047 and $2,075 intraday. That leaves Ether above

Ethereum’s main non-profit steward has moved sharply deeper into staking, depositing 45,034 ether worth about $93 million in a single day and taking its cumulative staked holdings to roughly 67,500 ETH, or about $143 million at current prices. The move leaves the Ethereum Foundation just short of the 70,000 ETH level it set out in February as part of a broader treasury strategy intended to generate on-chain yield rather than rely as heavily on asset sales to support operations.That latest

Shiba Inu posted a sharp rebound on 3 April, with market trackers showing the token climbing by roughly 2% on a daily closing basis and by a little over 3% at points during trading, offering traders a tentative sign of technical recovery after weeks of pressure on meme coins. SHIB closed around $0.00000599 on 3 April, up from about $0.00000586 a day earlier, while current live pricing on 4 April put it near $0.00000592, suggesting the bounce has yet to

Robinhood chief executive Vlad Tenev has sharpened his argument for a radical overhaul of market structure, saying the practice of shutting exchanges at the end of each trading day is a “legacy design choice” and that tokenisation could help create a financial system that works more like the internet. The remarks land as Robinhood expands beyond its retail-broker roots and as major market operators push blockchain-based versions of stocks and funds closer to the centre of mainstream finance.Tenev’s comments reflect

Ondo Finance drew fresh attention after Stockcoin. ai said its beta platform had gone live with AI-powered access to tokenised US stocks and stock-linked futures, a launch that placed Ondo’s on-chain equities infrastructure at the centre of another push to merge traditional markets with crypto rails. Social posts cited by search results from Ondo Finance described Stockcoin. ai as live for beta testing and positioned the service as an AI-native venue for trading tokenised US equities for non-US users.Price action

Drift, one of Solana’s larger decentralised finance trading platforms, said it was facing an “active attack” on April 1 and moved to suspend deposits and withdrawals as hundreds of millions of dollars appeared to leave the protocol, deepening concern over operational security risks in crypto markets. The platform told users not to deposit funds and said it was working with security firms, bridges and exchanges to contain the incident. Outside estimates of the outflows quickly moved beyond $200 million, with

 Binance has moved into energy-linked crypto derivatives, launching perpetual futures tied to WTI crude, Brent crude and natural gas in a step that broadens its product range beyond digital assets and into commodity price exposure. The exchange said Binance Futures would roll out USDⓈ-margined CLUSDT, BZUSDT and NATGASUSDT perpetual contracts on 1 April, with the contracts linked to benchmark oil and gas markets and designed for round-the-clock trading.The launch marks a notable shift for one of the world’s biggest crypto

Malta has sharpened its fight with Brussels over plans to tighten European Union oversight of crypto companies, arguing that a heavier centralised regime would drive firms towards the United States, the UAE and parts of Asia instead of keeping them inside the bloc. The warning marks the latest escalation in a widening dispute over how the EU should police digital-asset businesses under its new Markets in Crypto-Assets framework.At the centre of the clash is a push led by France,

Ripple’s partnership with Convera has pushed the crypto company further into mainstream cross-border finance, linking its blockchain infrastructure with a commercial payments group that serves businesses across more than 140 currencies and 200-plus countries and territories. Announced on March 31, the deal is designed to let corporate customers move money across borders more quickly by using stablecoins as settlement rails while keeping the customer-facing transaction anchored in fiat currencies.That matters because Convera is not a start-up testing a niche

Bhutan has moved another 374.9 bitcoin, valued at about $25.2 million, out of wallets linked to the Royal Government, extending a wave of transactions that has sharply reduced one of the world’s most closely watched sovereign crypto holdings. Blockchain data tracked by Arkham and cited by multiple market outlets showed the transfer took place on March 31, with the coins routed to an external address beginning with “bc1q0”, lifting the past week’s outflows to more than 1,000 BTC.What can