Author: Coindesk

Elastos, a project looking to turn Bitcoin into a more fruitful base for decentralized finance (DeFi), has raised $20 million towards that goal.Elastos, a decentralized infrastructure provider, aims to scale its Bitcoin DeFi protocol BeL2 as a utility layer for the world’s original blockchain.The firm has raised $20 million from private investment company Rollman Management, with which it plans to expand its merge-mined ELA token as a Bitcoin reserve asset, Elastos told CoinDesk in an email on Thursday.Merge mining is the process of mining two or more cryptocurrencies simultaneously.BeL2 is built to allow bitcoin holders to collateralize BTC in their…

Staunch crypto skeptic and disgraced former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Wednesday on charges of bribery and acting as an agent for Egypt, the Associated Press reported.Menendez was a Democrat from New Jersey and famous for taking shots at crypto. He once called bitcoin (BTC) an “ideal choice for criminals” and also opposed El Salvador’s acceptance of BTC.“You were successful, powerful, you stood at the apex of our political system,” District Judge Sidney H. Stein told Menendez, according to AP. ”Somewhere along the way, and I don’t know when it was, you lost…

Institution-focused digital asset technology and trading firm BlockFills is collaborating with CoinDesk Indices to launch options tied to the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20).The CoinDesk 20 Index, which debuted a year ago, measures the performance of leading digital assets, catering to institutional demand for diverse tradable products beyond bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH). The availability of options means traders can speculate on volatility and time in addition to price direction, bringing professional liquidity to the index.Options are derivative contracts that give the holder the right to buy or sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific…

Bernstein remains bullish on Core Scientific (CORZ) even after the shares tumbled 30% earlier this week as Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek challenged the idea that bitcoin (BTC) miners had value as data center plays. The slide means the stock is now available at a deep discount, the broker said in a research report Thursday.Core Scientific is the “leader of the pack” of the AI-focused miners, the report said, with 1.3 gigawatt (GW) of available power supply and a 12-year AI deal with CoreWeave. “Bitcoin miners have a 12-18 month finite window to build a hybrid data center business,…

Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency, has fallen out of investor relative to bitcoin (BTC), returning the worst bull-cycle performance against its larger rival since the Ethereum blockchain’s inception in 2015.A comparison of the ether to bitcoin ratio across past cycles from the tokens’ respective lows shows consistent underperformance. The black line in the chart above represents the current cycle that started in November 2022, when bitcoin bottomed at around $15,500 during the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. With each cycle, ether’s return against bitcoin has diminished.On Wednesday, the ratio dropped below 0.0300 to touch 0.02993, a four-year low. The previous…

Abstract, the layer-2 network rolled out this week by Pudgy Penguins, is off to a muted start despite offering a series of incentives to new users.The network notched 711,000 user transactions on the day of release, but that respectable total has been overshadowed by a lack of inflows. Its total value secured (TVS) was standing at just $33 million worth of ether (ETH) and stablecoins, a far cry from the tens of billions of dollars distributed across other hyped layer 2 networks.The platform’s native decentralized exchange, NOXA, has $109K worth of total value locked (TVL), down from $515K on launch…

Shaurya MalwaShaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis. Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA. He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome,…

Polymarket only sees a 16% chance that the Donald Trump will order the creation of a strategic bitcoin (BTC) reserve in the first 100 days of its administration, despite assurances from crypto czar David Sacks that there’s an effort underway to explore the idea.”President Trump has asked us to study that issue, so we are not ready to comment on it yet. But it’s one of the things our working groups are going to look at,” Sacks said in a recent appearance on Fox. Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican who is known for her bitcoin-friendly policy stance, has submitted…

If someone told you that stock market investors are offloading their cherished holdings, you will most likely interpret it as a sign of an impending market downturn.The narrative, however, differs in the crypto market, where such selling indicates bullishness, according to analysts observing historical trends in the supply held by long-term investors or wallets holding coins for at least 155 days or over five months.”Based on our analysis, sharp declines in long-term holder supply (purple line) have frequently coincided with strong bitcoin rallies (white line), as seen in Q1 and Q4 of 2024. As long as long-term holders continue reducing…

The crypto political action committee that stunned U.S. politics last year, Fairshake, successfully weighed in again in a pair of Florida special elections to replace Republican members of Congress, likely adding to its list of lawmakers who have the industry to thank for campaign support.A primary election closed Tuesday night, giving pro-crypto candidates supported by $700,000 in Fairshake money overwhelming victories in both seats. Florida’s 1st District vacated by former Representative Matt Gaetz and 6th District vacated by former Representative Mike Waltz are both staunchly Republican, meaning the primary winners — Jimmy Patronis in the 1st and Randy Fine in…