Crypto News

- Bitcoin Depot CEO Steps Down Amid Crypto ATM Crackdown Bitcoin Depot has replaced its CEO and executive chairman in a sudden leadership overhaul that signals a forced maturation for the crypto ATM industry. The world’s largest kiosk operator announced the departure of CEO Scott Buchanan and founder Brandon Mintz’s step-back from executive duties, bringing in former MoneyGram chief Alex Holmes to take the wheel. This follows immediately after Connecticut regulators issued a cease-and-desist order to shut down the company’s machines in the state. The timing is not a coincidence. While the SEC filing describes the resignation as amicable, the regulatory walls are closing in. Bitcoin Depot’s stock has plummeted nearly 70% over the...

- On March 17, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) delivered new joint guidance classifying crypto assets into five categories for the first time. But does that change anything for Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), and if it does, does it make the coin worth buying with $1,000 right now? What's new Per regulators, the new rules categorize 16 of the leading cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, as "digital commodities," meaning they derive their value from the operation of a functional blockchain and the supply-and-demand dynamics affecting the assets rather than from profits generated by someone's managerial efforts. For the broader crypto ecosystem, this is a significant departure...

- Key Takeaways Tron founder and crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun announced on Mar. 26 that his team has developed an AI “detective” system designed to detect and analyze on-chain fraud. The system is set to roll out through partnerships with judicial authorities in China, Hong Kong, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and other jurisdictions. The AI Fraud Detection System In a post on X, Sun explained that the system can process complex case data at high speed to identify suspects and support law enforcement. According to him, the AI has already examined cases involving more than $1 billion. He also said the system has flagged specific suspects, including entities and individuals such as First Digital Trust (FDT), Vincent...

- Google is changing speed and accelerating its posture to better handle the arrival of quantum computing. On Wednesday, Google announced that it’s setting an “ambitious timeline” to migrate most of its authentication and digital signature models to post-quantum cryptography by 2029. The company cited faster-than-expected progress in quantum hardware development, error correction, and factoring resource estimates. A day earlier, the Ethereum Foundation published a four-pronged roadmap to protect the $260 billion network. The organization also set a 2029 target for completion, although researchers inside the Ethereum Foundation don’t think quantum computing will be “cryptographically relevant” for another eight to 12 years. Even so...

- How an attacker spent just $1,808 to hold an entire crypto project hostage. ‘The proposal is clearly an attack’ Just 11 minutes and $1,808. That’s how much time and money an exploiter spent on creating a governance proposal to hand over the entire Moonwell protocol. Moonwell is a multichain lending protocol that provides liquidity for the Moonbeam and Moonriver ecosystems. It has around $85 million in total value locked, according to DefiLlama. Moonbeam is a parachain network on Polkadot, and Moonriver is the equivalent network on Polkadot’s developer network Kusama. If the attacker’s proposal is successful, the exploiter would gain total control over key components of the lending protocol, including its seven markets and the...

- Nvidia to Face Class Action Lawsuit Over Alleged Crypto Mining Revenue Gaps A federal judge has certified a class of investors alleging that American tech giant Nvidia and its CEO, Jensen Huang, concealed the extent to which the company's gaming GPU revenues depended on sales tied to crypto mining between 2017 and 2018. Nvidia was unable to show that its statements about crypto mining revenue had no effect on its stock price, according to an order filed Wednesday by Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. in California federal court. Investors first sued Nvidia in 2018, alleging the company concealed more than $1 billion in GPU sales tied to crypto mining and that Huang downplayed the scale of that demand. In 2022, the SEC fined Nvidia $5.5...

- Crypto Case Over Money Transmitter Laws Dismissed by US Judge A U.S. federal court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a crypto software developer seeking a preemptive ruling that his non-custodial crypto donation platform would not violate federal money transmission laws, leaving a key legal question unresolved for the industry. In an opinion issued Wednesday, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas granted the government’s motion to dismiss the case. It found that the developer, Michael Lewellen, had not demonstrated a credible threat of prosecution under federal law governing unlicensed money-transmitting businesses. Courts and regulators continue to grapple with how existing financial laws apply to...

- Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF ready for ‘imminent’ launch. Here’s why that’s a big deal A few years ago, few could have imagined that Morgan Stanley would launch its own spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. After all, its former top executive, James Gorman, said in 2024 that he never understood the value of Bitcoin. Things have changed now, and with the “imminent” launch of a Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF, the $83 billion already sitting in Bitcoin ETFs is about to get a whole lot bigger. On social media, Eric Balchunas, a senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, shared a screenshot of a pending listing for the bank’s ETF under the ticker MSBT. Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond for comment. Morgan Stanley operates the...

- Over $17bn in crypto options to expire this week — here’s what that means for the Bitcoin price Traders are bracing themselves as the expiry date for a colossal amount of Bitcoin options fast approaches. A total of $17 billion in digital assets options — more than $14.5 billion in Bitcoin — are set to expire on crypto derivatives platform Deribit on Friday. A Bitcoin options contract gives the trader the right, but not the obligation, to purchase the underlying asset at a specific price on a future date. This means traders don’t have to buy the Bitcoin when the contract expires, but they can if they want to. The expiry date falls on the same day that US President Trump set as the deadline for Iran to make a deal to end the...

- The crypto market is massive, and there are many different types of cryptocurrencies you can buy. Ethereum and Solana are smart contract platforms, and XRP is a payments coin, among others. Bitcoin is so large that it has effectively created its own category. You may want to invest in several types to build a diverse crypto portfolio, and with most of the market going through a downturn, now is a good time to buy the dip. However, you're better off avoiding one popular type of cryptocurrency: meme coins. A meme coin is any cryptocurrency that doesn't take itself too seriously. Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) was the first, and it was based on the popular "Doge" meme. Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB), another popular meme coin, based its dog-themed...

- Franklin Templeton Launches ETFs That Trade In Crypto Wallets 24/7 Investment firm Franklin Templeton (NYSE: $BEN) is launching new tokenized exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that will trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week inside cryptocurrency wallets. Franklin Templeton, which manages $1.68 trillion U.S. in assets, says its new tokenized ETFs can be traded around the clock within investors’ crypto wallets. Specifically, investors will be able to trade ETF shares as tokens on a blockchain from their compliant crypto wallet even when most stock markets are closed. The ETF products span U.S. equities, fixed income, and gold, with an initial rollout targeted at investors in Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Latin America...

- Key Takeaways How sensitive are crypto-stock investors to news coming out of Washington, D.C., these days? Yesterday offered a clue. Those listening for updates on the Clarity Act, legislation that would set a framework for how digital assets should be regulated, didn't like what they heard late Monday. Leaked details of draft legislation are said to limit rewards on stablecoins, cryptocurrencies that aim to stay pegged to fiat currency like the U.S. dollar. Trading platforms are said to be barred from offering rewards entirely. That spooked investors, who sent shares of stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL) 20% lower on Tuesday and battered exchanges Coinbase (COIN), Gemini (GEMI), and Bullish (BLSH). Moves elsewhere in crypto markets...

$15 Billion in Bitcoin Options Expire Friday as Trump's Iran Deadline Looms There's nearly $15 billion worth of Bitcoin options contracts expiring on derivatives exchange Deribit on Friday. That represents nearly 40% of the $36.5 billion worth of BTC open interest currently on the exchange. The derivatives exchange was acquired by Coinbase in a $2.9 billion deal in 2025 but still operates as Deribit. Jean-David Pequignot, the derivative exchange's chief commercial officer, said the platform will see $17 billion total in options expire tomorrow, which includes Bitcoin and Ethereum. He flagged that geopolitical forces are timed to spike volatility on Friday. "Bitcoin’s recent surge back toward $71k was catalyzed by President Donald...

- Investing in cryptocurrencies doesn't go far beyond Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP). When it comes to proven assets with real track records, Bitcoin and XRP get the most shouts. Bitcoin started trading for less than a penny in 2010 and is now valued around $71,000. XRP also launched at fractions of a cent before surging over 76,000% to hit its all-time high of $3.84 in January 2018, then reaching $3.65 again last July. Both coins are now trading well below their peaks, and analysts on Wall Street and across the crypto space are projecting that each could at least double from current levels before the end of 2026. So for anyone with $1,000 to invest, the obvious question is: what's the best crypto to buy right now? At...

- Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ: $IBKR) now allows clients to transfer supported cryptocurrencies from external wallets into accounts on its platform without having to sell the digital assets. The in-kind transfers mean that customers don’t need to liquidate their crypto positions to transfer them to an IBKR crypto account. Interactive Brokers says its new feature covers Bitcoin (CRYPTO: $BTC), Ethereum (CRYPTO: $ETH), Solana (CRYPTO: $SOL), and other cryptocurrencies. Commissions and Features Commissions for transferring crypto to IBKR from another brokerage range from 0.12% to 0.18% of trade value—well below the industry standard of 2%. The latest move comes after IBKR in January launched 24/7 stablecoin account funding. The...

- South Korean central bank embarks on crypto expert hiring spree South Korea’s central bank will fast-track the appointment of experienced crypto experts as it looks to revive its central bank digital currency plans. The Bank of Korea wants to hire 10 new employees, an undisclosed number of whom will need experience in the crypto industry, South Korean media outlet EToday reported. At least one of the new experts will work as a “digital assets market analyst” as of July, the BOK wrote in an official notice. The hirings and CBDC pivot come in the wake of the government’s decision to nominate a known stablecoin-sceptic, the Bank for International Settlements Monetary Economy Bureau chief Shin Hung-song, to the BOK’s governorship...

- CoinShares Files for Bitcoin Volatility ETF Suite, Targeting BTC Price Swings Digital asset manager CoinShares has quietly filed an amendment to register three new ETFs that track Bitcoin volatility. The Valkyrie ETF Trust II filed a post-effective amendment with the SEC for the CoinShares Bitcoin Volatility ETF, CoinShares Bitcoin Volatility Leveraged ETF, and CoinShares Bitcoin Volatility Inverse ETF. "Currently we know of no ETF that exists that will provide investors, institutions, and advisors exposure to the volatility of Bitcoin," a person familiar with the filings told Decrypt. "This suite of ETFs seeks to profit from increased or decreased volatility of Bitcoin, and may act as a strategy to manage risk in the convenient...

- Franklin Templeton, Ondo Finance Bring 24/7 Tokenized ETF Trading to Crypto Users Global asset manager Franklin Templeton and real-world asset tokenization firm Ondo Finance are teaming up to offer tokenized versions of five Franklin Templeton exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as part of a new initiative, the firms announced on Wednesday. The funds—which include Franklin Templeton’s high-yield corporate ETF, its focused growth ETF, and its responsibly sourced gold ETF—will allow those without traditional brokerage accounts to gain access and trade them around the clock. “The next phase of digital assets isn’t just about trading crypto, but building your optimized financial life on-chain, and we’re excited to combine efforts with Ondo...

- Key Takeaways BlackRock is no longer testing crypto—it’s building a business around it. In his 2026 annual letter to shareholders, CEO Larry Fink made one of his clearest statements yet on the firm’s ambitions: digital assets could soon become a major revenue engine, generating up to $500 million annually within five years. For a company that once approached crypto cautiously, the shift is unmistakable, and it reflects a broader transformation across global finance. BlackRock’s Crypto Bet Is Getting Bigger Fink’s projection comes as BlackRock’s crypto footprint has already reached significant scale. The firm now manages close to $150 billion in digital asset-linked products, a figure built in just a few years as...

- Bhutan is selling Bitcoin again. The Royal Government transferred 519.7 BTC worth roughly $36.75 million to a Binance deposit address Wednesday. The move comes from Druk Holding and Investments, the nation’s sovereign wealth fund, and follows a consistent pattern of outflows that has been running for months. The remaining stack now sits at 4,453 BTC. That is a sharp drop from a peak of over 13,000 BTC. More than two thirds of the position is gone. Key Takeaways: The Transfer: On-Chain Confirmation Data from Arkham Intelligence identifies the movement as a split transaction. The funds were routed to two distinct wallets: one associated with the trading firm QCP Capital and another directly feeding Binance Inflows. Direct...