Sovereign Bitcoin gets hot as German political leaders weigh role in Europe’s top economy

dlnews.com A version of this story appeared in our The Guidance newsletter on December 30. Sign up here. For ages, Bitcoin champions have dreamed of plugging their beloved…

DEXs’ $463bn record not ‘just a fleeting trend’ experts say and urge centralised exchanges to keep up

dlnews.com It’s been a December to remember for decentralised exchanges. DEXs are protocols that allow users to trade cryptocurrencies without a central authority. DefiLlama data shows…

Ripple’s new stablecoin is here. How it plans to rival Tether, PayPal, and Robinhood

dlnews.com Ripple is getting back to its roots. The crypto firm is officially launching its dollar-pegged token tomorrow and plunging into the ultra-lucrative $203 billion stablecoin…

Bitcoin hits $106,000 record and these three drivers will push the price into ‘unchartered waters’

dlnews.com Bitcoin rocketed to a new peak price of $106,000 on Monday ― a 150% surge since the start of the year. Monday’s price rally followed a brief price consolidation for Bitcoin…

Crypto’s ‘debanking’ debate is headed to Capitol Hill next year

dlnews.com A version of this story appeared in our The Guidance newsletter on December 16. Sign up here. Debanking or derisking? Which is it when a crypto venture or founder is dropped…

Why Bitcoin ETFs were just the beginning

dlnews.com Brace yourselves. If 2024 was the year of the Bitcoin spot price ETF then 2025 will be the year when a wave of far more exotic offerings hits the market. Think memecoins, AI…

MicroStrategy in the S&P 500 next? The one biggest hurdle to winning trading’s ‘holy grail’

dlnews.com MicroStrategy’s $44 billion Bitcoin bet drove the company to a near $100 billion valuation and an inclusion into the coveted Nasdaq-100 index. Will inclusion in the S&P 500…

These hybrid Bitcoin ETFs look to blend Nasdaq, gold, and MicroStrategy bonds

dlnews.com The success of spot price Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in 2024 has helped spawn some new creative spinoffs. These proposed hybrid ETFs aim to further integrate Bitcoin into…

Missed 2024′s crypto boom? VanEck says 2025 could be even bigger

dlnews.com If you missed out on the surging crypto market in the latter part of 2024, you might still have a chance to get in on the action. According to VanEck’s 2025 predictions, the…

El Salvador joins the 6,000 Bitcoin club amid growing nation-state adoption interest

dlnews.com After 39 months of making consistent purchases, El Salvador has reached a milestone of 6,000 Bitcoins in its reserves. This places the country sixth among the top government…

Solana co-founder allegedly kept millions in staking rewards from ex-wife in ‘acrimonious’ divorce

dlnews.com Stephen Akridge, a co-founder of Solana, allegedly withheld millions of dollars in crypto from his ex-wife, according to a lawsuit she filed in California state court on…

Crypto scams a key culprit in France’s half-billion euro fraud spree

dlnews.com French authorities are intensifying efforts to combat a surge in financial scams, which they claim are growing more sophisticated. The Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office and…

‘One Bitcoin = one Satoshi’ proposal looks to ditch the crypto’s decimal points

dlnews.com Bitcoin advocate John Carvalho introduced a new Bitcoin Improvement Proposal that seeks to redefine the cryptocurrency’s unit of measurement. The proposal suggests replacing…

World’s largest banks will custody crypto in 2025 says this $12tn prediction

dlnews.com Analysts forecast the four largest banks in the world will start offering crypto custody in 2025. According to Galaxy Research, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency…

MicroStrategy joins Nasdaq-100 ranks, but its stay could get cut short

dlnews.com MicroStrategy has officially secured a spot in the Nasdaq-100 Index, ending uncertainty over whether the company would qualify. Effective December 23, MicroStrategy’s…

DeFi websites hit with ‘disappointing’ KYC rule in waning days of Biden administration

dlnews.com US-based websites and crypto wallets that provide easy access to the world of decentralised finance must perform background checks on customers and record their every…

Terra’s Do Kwon to be sent to US to face trial on fraud charges

dlnews.com Do Kwon is not headed for South Korea after all. On Friday, news broke that Do Kwon, the founder of the failed Terra blockchain ecosystem, would be extradited to the US from…

New ETF tracks Bitcoin buyers as MicroStrategy’s tactic spreads

dlnews.com Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds? That’s so 2024. Bitwise is betting on what could be 2025′s next Bitcoin trend: companies stacking Bitcoin on their balance sheets. The…

Bitcoin options reach record $14bn in sign major rally is ‘weeks away’

dlnews.com The largest-ever Bitcoin options expiry is today, meaning traders are bracing for a big payoff. Investors piled more than $14 billion into contracts that expire on December…

Crypto ‘debanking’ is a raging issue in Washington

dlnews.com About an hour into a Congressional hearing last week, Representative French Hill had heard enough. “No one has any patience on this on either side of the aisle,” the…

Four crypto VCs on what will drive an $18bn investment frenzy in 2025

dlnews.com Venture capital investments will return with a vengeance in 2025. That’s according to VC firms and market watchers DL News has spoken with ahead of the new year. But what…

Binance CEO Richard Teng says UAE ‘very attractive’ as base for HQ

dlnews.com Richard Teng, the CEO of Binance, still won’t say where the world’s top crypto exchange will locate its global headquarters. But the former Abu Dhabi regulator did say that…

Russia says it uses Bitcoin for trade payments amid efforts to sidestep sanctions

dlnews.com Russia is using Bitcoin and digital currencies with international trade partners amid efforts to counter Western sanctions, said Anton Siluanov, the country’s finance…

Aave poised to leave Polygon blockchain after $1bn proposal triggers clash

dlnews.com Aave, the largest lending protocol in decentralised finance, is set to leave the Polygon blockchain after leaders at both organisations traded barbs over a proposal to…

MicroStrategy goes on $11bn holiday shopping spree in record Bitcoin binge

dlnews.com Michael Saylor, founder and chairman of MicroStrategy, is Christmas’ most predictable gift giver. All he ever does is buy Bitcoin. On Monday, his publicly-traded software…

How Bitcoin predictions from Cathie Wood, Mike Novogratz, and Michael Saylor played out in 2024

dlnews.com Bitcoin go down? Bitcoin go up? Bitcoin go really up? It’s a parlour game of predictions that crypto pontificators love to play. As 2024 comes to a close, the industry’s…

How Google’s quantum computing leap puts Satoshi’s $107bn Bitcoin stash at risk

dlnews.com A recent quantum computing breakthrough threatens Bitcoin. That’s according to Avalanche blockchain founder Emin Gün Sirer, who says that developments including Google’s new…

What eToro’s 500% jump in crypto trading means for the bull market

dlnews.com In a sign of bullishness among retail investors, crypto trading volume soared more than 500% in November on eToro, the online brokerage site, compared to the same month in…

What to expect from crypto airdrops in 2025

dlnews.com A version of this article appeared in our The Decentralised newsletter on December 24. Sign up here. GM, Tim here. A very Merry Christmas from everyone at DL News! Last…

Telegram caps rocky year with profit breakthrough and $500m in cash

dlnews.com Crypto’s messaging app of choice is profitable for the first time since it launched more than a decade ago, founder and CEO Pavel Durov said on Monday. “As I predicted, 2024…

The controversial ICO is back. Pundits promise this time is different

dlnews.com Brace for the return of one of the crypto industry’s most contentious fundraising tools. They’re called community rounds — a new take on initial coin offerings — and they’re…

The crypto firms on Gary Gensler’s naughty list: ‘Congrats and welcome to the club!’

dlnews.com “In the first quarter of the fiscal year, my regulator gave to me, one Wells notice and allegations I’ve issued an illegal security.” That’s what staffers at the Securities…

Even crypto critics like Trump’s pick to head the SEC

dlnews.com A version of this story appeared in our The Guidance newsletter on December 9. Sign up here. It’s hard to recall a time when there was so much anticipation for a government…

North Korean hackers’ $308m DMM Bitcoin heist ranked 2024′s biggest. AI will make attacks even worse

dlnews.com It wasn’t a secret. Blockchain security experts shouted it from rooftops last year: Infrastructure attacks targeting private keys and smart contract ownership would cause…

Meet Trump’s new adviser picks: a crypto PAC darling, a Fed critic, and Musk’s AI confidant

dlnews.com US President-elect Donald Trump’s latest advisor picks are in. He chose Bo Hines, Stephen Miran, and Sriram Krishnan to take on roles in digital asset policy, economic…

First Microsoft, now Amazon: Here’s the real reason Big Tech’s suddenly talking about Bitcoin treasuries

dlnews.com A conservative think tank is ratcheting up its aggressive campaign to get Fortune 500 companies to invest in Bitcoin. The National Center for Public Policy Research now…

These US states could outpace the feds in establishing Bitcoin reserves

dlnews.com President-elect Donald Trump’s declaration that he aims to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet” and establish a national Bitcoin reserve has been a key driver of…

Michael Saylor pitches his $81 trillion-dollar Bitcoin reserve plan for the US

dlnews.com After spending the past four years adding Bitcoin to MicroStrategy’s reserves and profiting over $15 billion, Michael Saylor is calling on the United States to adopt Bitcoin…

Brooklyn prosecutors crack down on fake NFT marketplaces after artist loses life savings

dlnews.com Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez reported that it had shut down 40 fraudulent NFT marketplace domains as part of a crackdown on a scam that targeted artists across…

$22m NFT fraud and harassment campaign lands two Californians in court

dlnews.com Two California men have been charged in the largest NFT fraud case ever prosecuted, accused of defrauding investors of over $22 million through deceptive schemes. According…

Jump Trading crypto subsidiary hit with $123m fine over TerraUSD scandal

dlnews.com Jump Trading’s Tai Mo Shan Ltd. will pay $123 million to settle allegations it misled investors by stabilising TerraUSD during its collapse, the Securities and Exchange…

Will Gary Gensler block Solana ETF approvals as his ‘parting gift’ to crypto?

dlnews.com The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) appears poised to reject multiple filings for Solana spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs), potentially leaving their fate to the…

Hacks kill most DeFi projects. But there’s a way to boost odds of survival

dlnews.com Fewer than half of all DeFi protocols that suffer a hack or exploit survive the experience. That’s according to research from Cozy Finance, a blockchain-based market that…

How insiders and bots crashed Hawk Tuah Girl’s memecoin

dlnews.com “Anyhoo I’m going to go to bed and see you guys tomorrow.” That was Haliey Welch’s parting words on a now-deleted X Spaces monitored by DL News on Thursday to angry…

Coinbase’s top lawyer says Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is ‘no conspiracy theory’

dlnews.com In the latest salvo fired in the debate over debanking, Paul Grewal, the chief legal officer of Coinbase, said Friday that a plot by the Biden Administration to press…

FTX-linked fund MNNC Group raises over $100m after LedgerPrime name change

dlnews.com Parts of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire are still kicking. MNNC Group told DL News that it’s raised more than $100 million. According to Thursday filings with the…

Why Solana’s 130% surge and memecoin prowess is closing the gap with Ethereum

dlnews.com For years, Solana was dubbed the Ethereum-killer, a blockchain that would leapfrog the original decentralised finance ecosystem by working faster and cheaper. While the…

Trump taps ‘PayPal Mafia’ capo as new crypto czar. Here’s what David O. Sacks’ said about Bitcoin

dlnews.com President-elect Donald Trump is stacking his cabinet with pro-crypto heavyweights, aiming to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet.” His latest pick, David O. Sacks…

Bitcoin’s success is a danger to the dollar. Trump must choose

dlnews.com Wolfgang Münchau is a columnist for DL News. He is co-founder and director of Eurointelligence, and writes a column on European affairs for the New Statesman. Opinions are…

XRP, Ethereum, and Solana are slumping as hawkish Fed haunts crypto

dlnews.com This week’s slump in the crypto market hasn’t abated. Over the past 24 hours, the price of Bitcoin has dropped 7.3% to now $94,662. And Ether has plummeted 13% to $3,213.…

How Putin helped boost Bitcoin to $100,000

dlnews.com No sooner had Bitcoin broken through the $100,000 barrier on Wednesday that crypto experts were already setting their sights on the $200,000 price level. The catalysts,…

Why BlackRock’s Bitcoin explainer is raising alarm bells

dlnews.com BlackRock is caught in the eye of a storm from the Bitcoin community after it let out a suspicious line in a three minute Bitcoin explainer. In the video, the narrator…

Sam Altman’s Worldcoin still ‘has to do some homework’ to be GDPR compliant, conludes German data probe

dlnews.com Sam Altman’s eye-scanning crypto project needs to take a second look at its European operations. The German data agency investigating World over its data collection…

Chainalysis co-founder Jonathan Levin replaces Michael Gronager as CEO of blockchain analytics firm

dlnews.com Michael Gronager, co-founder and longtime CEO of crypto analytics heavyweight Chainalysis, has stepped down as the company’s top executive. “I look forward to watching and…

Crypto VC Lattice to raise third fund amid surging crypto market

dlnews.com Another crypto venture capital firm plans to raise another batch of capital. Lattice, which has invested in crypto since 2021, is raising a third fund, according to…

Bitcoin blew past $100,000 price. Experts see three drivers on path to $200,000 and beyond

dlnews.com The Bitcoin rally keeps pumping. The largest cryptocurrency finally blew past $100,000, a crucial milestone for the 16-year-old asset. After rising 6% over the last day,…

Pro-crypto SEC commissioner Hester Peirce probes 'debanking' as outcry mounts

dlnews.com Worries over the debanking of crypto companies and executives have reached the highest rungs of the Securities and Exchange Commission. In Wednesday comments, SEC…