The Arbitrum Security Council moved quickly this week to contain the fallout from the KelpDAO exploit, touting the emergency “freeze” of more than 30,000 ETH tied to the attacker as a win for user protection. But beneath the language of containment, the intervention has reopened one of crypto’s oldest and most uncomfortable debates: What decentralization […]
XRP rallied briefly on Wednesday, but the move didn’t last as bitcoin fell on profit-taking following its move to near $80,000 in Asian morning hours on Thursday. Sellers stepped in near resistance, pushing the price down, suggesting the market still lacks conviction to break out, especially as broader cryptos see profit-taking led by bitcoin. News
Ripple-linked token slips amid bitcoin gains, ETF lags Read More »
Crypto exchanges are increasingly offering bank-like services such as lending and yield products, but without the protections provided by traditional financial institutions, according to a report issued Thursday by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). “What looks like a high-yield savings product is actually an unsecured loan to a lightly regulated shadow bank,” said the
Until last Friday, April 17, lending stablecoins to Aave, commonly considered the gold standard for DeFi, paid 2.32% APY. The Federal Reserve’s overnight interest rate was 3.64 per cent. Taken at face value, the market priced an unregulated, open source smart contract as a lower credit risk than the US Treasury. In 48 hours it
The market repriced DeFi in just 48 hours Read More »
Persistent security vulnerabilities and stagnant total value locked (TVL) are weighing on decentralized finance (DeFi)’s institutional appeal, according to Wall Street investment bank JPMorgan (JPM). TVL refers to the total value of cryptoassets deposited in DeFi protocols and is commonly used as a measurement of ecosystem size, usage, and overall health. The KelpDAO exploit, which
JPMorgan ( JPM ) says persistent security flaws slow DeFi’s institutional appeal Read More »
Tether, the crypto company best known for issuing the world’s largest stablecoin, said on Thursday it has frozen $344 million USDT tokens across two wallets on the Tron blockchain after receiving requests from US authorities. The freeze was implemented after authorities flagged the addresses for alleged links to illegal activity, the company said in a
Tether freezes $344 million in USDT on Tron linked to illegal activity Read More »
In today’s newsletter, First Digital’s Vincent Chok unpacks the rise of “agentic finance,” where AI agents move beyond advice to execute financial transactions, making crypto the essential financial backend for this machine-driven economy. Then, in “Ask an Expert,” we asked three leading AI systems—Grok, Gemini, and Claude—two questions about AI payment usage and the steps
what advisers need to know Read More »
Recent advances in quantum computing have revived a long-standing concern about bitcoin BTC$78,192.41. A sufficiently powerful cryptographically relevant quantum computer could, in theory, break bitcoin’s elliptic curve signatures and reveal coins with visible public keys, especially early Satoshi-era wallets, according to bitcoin analyst James Check. Quantum doomsayers warn that this will trigger a flood of
Why bitcoin’s quantum threat is manageable, not existential Read More »
CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index. The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 2117.36, down 1.9% (-40.48) since 4 PM ET Wednesday. All 20 assets are trading lower. Leaders: XLM (-0.6%) and CRO (-0.9%). Laggards: UNI (-3.9%) and ETH (-2.9%). The CoinDesk
Uniswap (UNI) falls 3.9%, leading index lower Read More »
Just like bitcoin BTC$77,694.33 appeared to have built momentum for a breakout above $80,000, macro uncertainty re-emerged as a headwind. The most notable development came from the Pentagon, which told US lawmakers in a classified briefing that clearing mines in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil choke point, could take at least six months
BTC price bullish momentum runs into Pentagon-backed inflation warning Read More »
