The U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions watchdog removed Tornado Cash from its global blacklist Friday. The crypto mixing tool has been accused of helping North Korea’s Lazarus Group launder stolen funds from its various hacks and thefts, and the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control sanctioned it — meaning no U.S. person or anyone … Read more
A mysterious crypto trader that made millions trading derivatives this year has been identified as William Parker, a convicted fraudster, according to blockchain sleuth ZachXBT. Parker made $6.8 million on one position after going long on BTC just before Donald Trump’s weekend announcement of a U.S. strategic crypto reserve, per ZachXBT. He then turned around … Read more
A key gauge of economic sentiment and corporate credit health has receded from its recent multi-month highs in a positive development for risk-taking in stocks and crypto markets. The relief, however, could be short-lived, per some observers. The indicator in consideration is the ICE/BofA U.S. High Yield Index Option-Adjusted Spread (OAS), which measures the average … Read more
The Trump administration is preparing to restructure the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and integrate blockchain technology into its procurement system, Wired reported, citing a memo circulating among State Department staff. The plan proposes rebranding the agency as U.S. International Humanitarian Assistance and moving it directly under the authority of the Secretary of State, … Read more
Strategy (MSTR) will likely soon be in the market for additional sizable bitcoin purchases after pricing an upsized sale of its latest preferred stock issue. The company sold 8.5M shares of its 10% Series A Perpetual Strife Preferred Stock at price of $85 each, raising roughly $711.2M. Strategy initially had hoped to raise $500M. The … Read more
Short-term price dips are par for the course in bitcoin’s (BTC) bull markets, but one indicator suggests the current decline from recent highs may reflect a deeper structural shift in market dynamics. Bitcoin was trading around $84,000 as European morning hours on Friday, a 23% drop from its January peak of $109,000. The fall has … 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 2642.5, down 1.0% (-27.91) since 4 p.m. ET on Thursday. Five of 20 assets are trading higher. Leaders: DOT (+2.1%) and AAVE (+1.6%). Laggards: SUI (-5.1%) and FIL (-3.3%). … Read more
Just when it appeared that the yen scare could be easing, Japan has reported an uptick in core inflation. Data released early Friday showed Japan’s core inflation, which stripes out prices for fresh food, rose 3% year-on-year in February, moderating from January’s 3.2% but beating the consensus forecast for 2.9%. The headline consumer price index … Read more
By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) With just over a week to go until the end of March, the first quarter has been disappointing, particularly in terms of price action rather than narrative for the crypto industry. Bitcoin (BTC) has dropped 10%, its worst first-quarter performance since 2020, and ether (ETH) … Read more
Bakkt Holdings (BKKT) is bringing on Akshay Naheta as co-CEO and entering a strategic partnership with Naheta’s payments startup, Distributed Technologies Research (DTR), as the firm moves to unlock new revenue streams. Naheta, a former SoftBank executive with past investments in Nvidia and ARM, will officially join Bakkt’s leadership team from today. Alongside current CEO … Read more
