Author: Coindesk

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 3834.16, down 2.9% (-116.36) since 4 pm ET.One of 20 assets is trading higher.Leaders: HBAR (+0.8%) and BTC (-1.6%).Laggards: LTC (-7.6%) and FIL (-6.2%).The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally. Read the full article here

Solana’s network activity lit up on Tuesday as the Pudgy Penguins NFT project debuted its native token, PENGU, on the programmable blockchain.The layer 1 blockchain, considered a cheap alternative to Ethereum, registered a total transaction tally of 66.9 million, the highest since its inception in 2020, according to data source Artemis. To highlight how busy it was, Solana’s transaction count eclipsed the total of all other major chains combined.Solana also led other blockchains in terms of daily decentralized exchange trading volume and daily active addresses but lagged Base, Ethereum and Tron in the stablecoin transfer volume.Since the dawn of the…

Earlier this year, some users of wrapped bitcoin wBTC were dismayed to find its issuer BitGo was sharing custody of their bitcoin (BTC) with BiT Global, a Hong Kong-based crypto custodian partly owned by TRON founder Justin Sun.The episode “reopened old wounds inflicted by previous centralized custody failure,” even though it did not expose any novel flaws, the Bitcoin Builders Association (BBA) said in a report on Wednesday.”These wounds cause BTC holders to be unwilling to trade off their self-custody for trusted solutions,” the report said.The BBA noted that there’s been signs of growing distrust toward centralized entities. WBTC’s supply…

Patchwork, a startup focused on simplifying blockchain and smart-contract development founded by former Coinbase employees, has released the next version of its low-to-no-code tools for building decentralized applications (dapps).Currently linked to Coinbase’s popular Ethereum layer-2 network Base and backed by Coinbase Ventures, the “Create-Patchwork” picks-and-shovels approach lowers the barriers to building blockchain applications and attaching data to them.Following the trend toward easily generated content, the complex world of blockchains and smart-contract design is on a path to no-code applications, or “text-to-app” experience.Create-Patchwork is the first of several features the team plans to roll out in early 2025 and a foundational…

Swiss cryptocurrency custody specialist Taurus is collaborating with Temenos, a firm that provides core banking software to many of the world’s largest financial institutions, allowing those banks to quickly and easily create crypto wallets and transfer a wide range of digital assets.This collaboration is important as the Geneva-headquartered Temenos is quite big: the firm has 67 offices in 40 countries and serves over 3000 banks and financial institutions. Taurus, whose crypto custody clients include the likes of Deutsche Bank and State Street, says it is the first digital asset custody platform to fully integrate with Temenos.The integration means banks using…

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)The crypto market is derisking ahead of today’s Fed rate decision. Everyone’s buzzing about the likelihood of another rate cut that will supposedly galvanize risk-taking in the economy and financial markets.Here’s the twist: The central bank is expected to signal three rate cuts for 2025, not the four it projected in September, as well as revise growth and inflation forecasts higher. No surprise, then, that bitcoin and ether are trading nearly 2% lower, driving bigger losses in small-cap tokens. Among them, Pudgy Penguins’ PENGU token, which has slumped over 50% since Tuesday’s…

Fintech giant Revolut plans to extend its battle-tested security wrapper, Revolut Pay, to crypto customers from the start of 2025 to improve protection against fraudulent attacks.As it stands, Revolut says, there is limited visibility into card transactions and bank transfers its crypto customers make with exchanges, potentially exposing them to higher levels of fraud due to card mechanisms having limited anti-scam protections.A 12-month pilot of firms using Revolut Pay’s enhanced due diligence, direct API integration and end-to-end control over the payment process showed crypto customers were exposed to about 50% fewer attempts to defraud them, Revolut said in a statement.These…

While bitcoin (BTC) continues to reach new lifetime highs, the latest options market trend indicates that traders aren’t chasing the uptrend with the same zeal as before.On Monday, BTC’s price rose above $107,000, surpassing the previous peak on Dec. 5 and taking the cumulative post-U.S.-election gain to over 50%, CoinDesk data show.The rally follows President-elect Donald Trump’s assurance that the U.S. will build a bitcoin strategic reserve similar to its strategic oil reserve. Analysts expect the winning streak to continue next year, with prices ranging between $150K to $200K by the end of the following year.However, the current pricing of…

While Vancouver’s City Council has passed a motion to explore becoming a ‘bitcoin-friendly city’, British Columbia still has a province-wide ban on mining BTC until December 2025.B.C.’s bitcoin mining ban began in December 2022 to address energy concerns, and it faced a legal challenge from Conifex Timber, which the B.C. Supreme Court upheld in early 2024, citing the policy’s reasonableness and alignment with public utility regulations.BC Hydro, the largest electricity utility in the province, relies heavily on hydroelectric power, which generates over 90% of its electricity.Vancouver’s motion – introduced to the council by Mayor Ken Sim – focuses on bitcoin’s…

IP-backed memecoin Simon’s Cat (CAT) surged 50% Monday after becoming the first cat-themed token to get a coveted Binance spot listing — amid some meme tokens taking the plagiarism heat.CAT zoomed from $0.000039 to a record peak of $0.000067 in early Asian hours Tuesday, data shows, before paring gains. Trading volumes rose tenfold from $55 million to over $500 million.Open interest in the token’s future products nearly doubled to over $60 million, showing a bump in expectations of further volatility with a bullish bias.Binance said Monday it would offer airdrops of CAT to users of their Earn products who staked…