Crypto News

- Polymarket Users Lost Millions to ‘Bot-Like’ Bettors Over the Past Year Bot-like bettors on the prediction platform Polymarket have extracted millions of dollars from users over the past year by capitalizing on mispriced bets. This information comes from a study conducted by researchers at the IMDEA Networks Institute. Polymarket is a cryptocurrency-based prediction market where participants can wager on future events. The researchers analyzed 86 million bets across numerous prediction markets between last April and this April, identifying users who exploited mispriced wagers to secure risk-free profits at the expense of others. The researchers found that these arbitrage trades collectively amounted to nearly $40 million. In...

- Bitcoin ETFs continued their five-day streak of outflows, shedding over $1.1 billion in the past week as investors de-risk ahead of U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s final address at Friday’s Jackson Hole symposium. This widespread sell-off in risk-on assets has coincided with a 10% crash in Bitcoin’s price since its August 14 all-time high of $124,545. U.S. equities have also suffered a similar fate, with the S&P 500 index down 1.72% since its own high on August 13. The large-scale de-risking across ETFs and cryptocurrency markets can be attributed to a concerning inflation data released in August, leading to a significant shift in the market’s rate cut perspective. The rate cut odds, as a result, have dropped from...

Morning Minute: Coinbase CEO Calls for Bitcoin to Hit $1 Million Today's top news: Brian Armstrong Joins the $1M Bitcoin Club Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong just laid out his big target: Bitcoin could hit $1,000,000 by 2030. What Happened Speaking on the Cheeky Pint podcast, Armstrong laid out his bold thesis for Bitcoin’s future, predicting $1M BTC within the next five years. His rationale centers on three major drivers: He joins a growing list of Bitcoin bulls: Jack Dorsey has also forecast $1M BTC, and Cathie Wood has gone further, projecting up to $3.8M by 2030. And that doesn’t even take into account some of Michael Saylor’s predictions. Why It Matters Anyone can make a big bull call like this. But some calls matter more than...

- Can IBM's Focus on Innovative AI Solutions Spur an Uptrend? International Business Machines Corporation IBM is focusing more on smaller, domain-focused artificial intelligence (AI) models, emphasizing reliability, cost-efficiency, and practical enterprise utility. IBM’s watsonx platform has been the core technology platform for its AI capabilities. It delivers the value of foundational models to the enterprise, enabling them to be more productive. This enterprise-ready AI and data platform comprises three products to help organizations accelerate and scale AI — the watsonx.ai studio for new foundation models, generative AI, and machine learning, the watsonx.data fit-for-purpose data store built on an open lake house architecture and...

- Whish Money partners with Mastercard to enable remittances in Lebanon Whish Money has teamed up with Mastercard to facilitate remittance services for consumers in Lebanon. This partnership utilises Mastercard Move's money movement solutions to provide Lebanese individuals with the ability to send funds to over 50 countries and receive money from abroad. Depending on the destination, senders can select the method of receipt for the beneficiaries, which includes bank accounts, mobile wallets, or cash pickups. Moreover, Lebanese senders can now fund their Whish Money wallet using their cards, marking Mastercard's inaugural partnership with a Lebanese mobile wallet for remittance purposes. Whish Money CEO and co-founder Toufic...

- Institutional Bitcoin ETF holdings rise by 64,983 BTC to $33.6 billion in Q2: K33 Institutional investors—based on 13F and 13G filings—increased their Bitcoin ETF exposure by 64,983 BTC in Q2, pushing institutional holdings to a record $33.6 billion, according to a report by K33. Millennium and Jane Street closed Q2 as the largest institutional BTC ETF owners, with Millennium holding the top position for every quarter since Q1 2024. Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sovereign wealth fund modestly increased its stake, while Harvard Endowment allocated $116 million into IBIT during Q2. The quarter marked a reversal from Q1 2025, when institutions trimmed their ETF exposure by 38,155 BTC even as other holders added 41,716 BTC. Institutional...

- Where Will iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF Be in 5 Years? Key Points Whatever Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) does over the next five years, iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (NASDAQ: IBIT) will follow almost exactly the same pattern. 2030 is basically an eternity away when you're dealing with the volatile cryptocurrency market. Nobody knows exactly what's coming up, and there will almost certainly be both bullish and bearish surprises along the way. That being said, let me sketch up the most likely scenario for the iShares Bitcoin ETF over this period. Why I expect Bitcoin to rise First and foremost, I do expect Bitcoin prices to rise in the long run. The original cryptocurrency has proved its worth as a reliable tool for long-term wealth storage...

- Bitcoin-Volatility Collapse Forces Risk-Loving Traders Elsewhere Bitcoin, once the unruly child of finance, is showing signs of maturity as its wild swings fade, forcing speculative traders to hunt for a new playground. The world’s biggest cryptocurrency is behaving more like a blue-chip stock as Wall Street’s buy-and-hold investors plunge in. Annualized volatility has dropped to a once-unthinkable 38% from close to 200% more than a decade ago. It is now comparable to the likes of Starbucks Corp. or Goldman Sachs Group Inc., according to Bytetree Asset Management. Investors chasing price swings are instead turning to rival Ethereum, the second-largest virtual currency. On several trading days this month, Ether exchange-traded fund...

- CBDC Ban Clears House, Moving Trump Closer to Checking Off Final Crypto Campaign Pledges When US President Donald Trump took office in January, he brought with him an ambitious set of campaign-trail promises made to the crypto industry. One of the few — and one of his earliest pledges — still on the table is his vow to block a US central bank digital currency. “Such a currency would give the federal government absolute control over your money,” Trump warned last year. “They could take your money, and you wouldn’t even know it was gone.” Those efforts took a step forward this week when the House of Representatives passed the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which includes a provision to block the Federal Reserve from...

- Binance Australia ordered to hire auditor for money-laundering concerns Binance is under the microscope in Australia. Austrac, the country’s financial crimes regulator, has ordered the crypto exchange to appoint an external auditor after allegedly finding shortcomings in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing systems. “Big global operators may appear well resourced … but if they don’t understand local money laundering and terrorism financing risks, they are failing to meet their AML/CTF obligations in Australia,” the country’s top regulator Brendan Thomas said. Austrac also flagged concerns with Binance’s high staff turnover and what it said was a lack of local resourcing and senior management oversight...

- Key Points If you're an income investor, it can be a little overwhelming to choose the best dividend stocks to fill your portfolio. There are so many to choose from -- thousands of stocks and funds from which you can get a quarterly dividend payment. In fact, there are even exchange-traded funds that qualify as dividend ETFs, with dividend reinvestment plans that automatically reinvest the dividend into your account. Then there are monthly dividend stocks, which pay out more often. I actually prefer these types of dividend stocks because investors get their money quicker than waiting until the end of the quarter, which means that you have more control to reinvest those funds and get the money working for you. And if you are relying...

- Crypto startups snag $36m from investors Six crypto startups raised more than $36 million this week, according to DefiLlama data. This brings the total funding for crypto startups to over $14 billion in the first eight months of 2025, outpacing 2024’s total by more than $1 billion. Industry players have already raised over $4 billion in July and August alone. PitchBook predicts that the industry will raise $18 billion this year. Investors from Galaxy Ventures and Codebase expect it to go even higher, with expectations of over $25 billion to be invested in the industry in 2025. Here are three of the biggest raises this week. Block Earner, $8 million Australian fintech Block Earner has raised $8 million in a Series A funding round...

- What Next for ETH, XRP, SOL as Bitcoin Stalls at $113K, ETF Outflows Mount Bitcoin traded near $113,700 on Thursday, failing to hold above $115,000 as resistance from the 50-day moving average capped a rebound attempt. The broader crypto market added just 1% to $3.86 trillion in capitalization, a move analysts described as a bounce on the way down rather than the start of a recovery. “The technology sector in traditional financial markets remains under pressure, dampening the mood of cryptocurrency buyers,” said Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro. “Bitcoin’s unsuccessful attempt to return above $115K only highlights the market’s weakness.” ETF flows were indicative of caution. According to SoSoValue, bitcoin ETFs...

- Could Solana Hit $500 Before 2026? Key Points From a performance perspective, Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) checks all the boxes for a blockchain network, providing stability, low costs, and speed. Its network has delivered 100% uptime for 18 months and counting, including in January, when it had the highest level of activity ever recorded by any blockchain. Transaction fees on Solana are normally under $0.01. It's also one of the fastest blockchains, processing over 1,000 transactions per second (tps), and it recently hit 100,000 tps in a brief experiment. Solana hasn't delivered much of a return on the year, but that could change in the near future. Here are the tailwinds that could take it to the next level, and whether a $500 price is...

- Key Points In case you missed it, last week marked one of the most important data dumps of the entire quarter. August 14 was the deadline for institutional investors with at least $100 million in assets under management to file Form 13F with the Securities and Exchange Commission. While earnings season can clue investors into the health of corporate America, 13Fs are invaluable in helping investors spot which stocks, industries, sectors, and trends have the undivided attention of Wall Street's greatest money managers. Although Warren Buffett's trading activity is closely followed by investors, he's far from the only billionaire money manager with the prowess to uncover gems hiding in plain sight. For example, billionaire Philippe...

- Ripple and SBI Holdings are preparing to launch the RLUSD stablecoin in Japan by early next year, as the country’s freshly crafted stablecoin laws open its market to foreign issuers. The joint move was signed under a memorandum of understanding that will see Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin distributed in Japan through SBI VC Trade, the group’s licensed crypto exchange, Ripple announced late Thursday evening. Ripple’s entry would help step up the “reliability and convenience of stablecoins in the Japanese market,” SBI VC Trade CEO Tomohiko Kondo said in a statement. It comes as Japan’s Payment Services Act amendment took effect in June 2023, establishing a licensing regime for electronic payment instruments. An earlier version of the...

- Crypto Scam Sites Make Up a Fifth of ASIC’s Two-Year Takedown Australia’s securities regulator has taken down more than 14,000 scam and phishing websites over the past two years, with crypto schemes accounting for about one-fifth of the total, it said Thursday. ASIC said it will expand its investment scam website takedown capability to include social media advertisements, in efforts to protect Australian consumers from increasingly sophisticated online fraud schemes. Roughly 3,015 crypto scam websites have been removed, the regulator said. “ASIC could play a more active role in highlighting the differences between unregulated trading platforms (where investors are much more exposed to scam activities and bad actors) and regulated...

- Japan's SBI Holdings Joins Tokenized Stock Push With Startale Joint Venture Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings is moving into the red-hot tokenized stock market through a joint venture with Singapore-based blockchain development firm Startale. The companies plan to build an on-chain platform designed for trading tokenized equities and real-world assets (RWAs), they announced on Friday. The step puts SBI alongside a growing roster of major players experimenting with tokenized stocks. Robinhood and several crypto exchanges including Kraken, Gemini started offering blockchain-based versions of publicly traded shares. SBI, which oversees more than 11 trillion yen ($74 billion) in assets and has over 65 million customers globally...

- Bitcoin Options Traders Split Ahead of Fed's Jackson Hole Meeting Bitcoin traders are closely monitoring two price levels as U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell prepares to deliver his highly anticipated address at Jackson Hole on Friday. The options market is currently sending mixed signals, with data suggesting a defensive posture even as a potential for another rally in the second half of this year remains. A negative 25 Delta Skew suggests traders are paying more for call options—or the right to buy at a certain strike price—reflecting a tilt towards a bullish bias. Still, it’s worth noting that the Skew has declined slightly over the past 24 hours, hinting at a dip in traders willing to put up cash to stay in their...

- CFTC Opens Next Phase of Crypto Sprint, Seeks Public Input on Broader Rules The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is proceeding with the third phase of its "crypto sprint," a series of accelerated rulemaking efforts designed to implement recommendations from the President's Working Group on Digital Asset Markets. "The Administration has made it clear that enabling immediate trading of digital assets at the Federal level is a top priority," acting CFTC chair Caroline Pham wrote in a statement on Thursday. The CFTC's latest sprint expands beyond spot crypto trading to address all remaining recommendations from the working group's report on strengthening American leadership in technologies such as crypto and digital assets. The...