Author: Coindesk

The ongoing U.S.-China trade war is likely to bring down inflation in the U.S. economy, key sections of the financial market indicate, offering bullish cues to risk assets, including bitcoin (BTC). In his inaugural address on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump promised to “tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” and then fired the first shot against China, Canada and Mexico on Feb. 1. Since then, the trade tensions have escalated to such an extent that as of writing, the U.S. and China have imposed retaliatory tariffs on each other in excess of 100%.Tariffs increase the cost of…

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 2375.69, up 3.5% (+79.38) since 4 p.m. ET on Thursday.All 20 assets are trading higher.Leaders: SOL (+6.4%) and BCH (+5.3%).Laggards: HBAR (+1.5%) and DOT (+2.4%). The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally. Read the full article here

Crypto-backed loan provider APX Lending has secured a $20 million accordion facility from Cypress Hills, a private credit investment firm.An accordion facility is a provision that allows a borrower to increase their borrowing without renegotiating the entire agreement. In effect, it expands like an accordion.Toronto-based APX, which offers lending with digital assets as collateral, plans to use the facility to accelerate its expansion in Canada to meet rising demands for crypto-backed loans, according to an emailed announcement shared with CoinDesk on Friday.“This accordion facility from Cypress Hills marks a major step forward in our mission to make crypto-backed loans transparent,…

The United States Congress recently voted to repeal the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) controversial decentralized finance (DeFi) broker rule, a big win for crypto. And on Thursday President Trump killed the measure for good.But let’s not fool ourselves — there’s more pain to come.In December 2024, the IRS proposed a broad rule requiring DeFi platforms to follow standard crypto broker tax rules, including extensive user KYC and other disclosures. The crypto industry pushed back immediately, with numerous blockchain groups suing the IRS almost as soon as the rule was announced.DeFi platforms aren’t designed to collect this type of information in…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s memecoin (TRUMP) will undergo a major token unlock next week, with the team behind the project set to receive $320 million, around 20% of the circulating supply.The unlock might be another blow for the thousands of investors who reportedly lost a collective $2 billion after purchasing the token in January.TRUMP currently trades at $8.03, having lost 83% of its value since Jan. 18, two days before Trump was inaugurated as president. Token unlocks are typically bearish events, as they involve flooding the market with fresh supply without providing incentives to drive demand. However, sometimes, the market…

Crypto criminals are taking increasing pains to evade detection, moving assets between a multitude of blockchain ecosystems in an effort to throw investigators off their trail. A full 20% of complex cross-chain investigations now span more than 10 different blockchains, according to new data from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.Elliptic found that a third of complex cross-chain investigations involved four or more blockchains, and 27% involved more than five.Jackson Hull, Elliptic’s chief technology officer, told CoinDesk that though cross-chain crime has existed as long as there have been multiple blockchains, the volume of cross-chain crime has increased “pretty dramatically” over the…

In no surprise given the lame crypto price action in the first quarter of 2025, BlackRock (BLK) posted a sizable slump in net inflows into its spot bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) ETFs.In all, investors put $3 billion into BlackRock’s digital asset-focused ETFs in the first three months of the year, according to the company’s first quarter earning report. That’s an 83% drop from what was a big inflow number in the fourth quarter as prices and sentiment shot higher alongside the Trump election victory. Taken alone, the first quarter number still signals strong demand for crypto-linked funds, even as…

A New York judge ruled Friday that the majority of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil securities fraud suit against crypto venture firm Digital Currency Group (DCG) and two of its executives can proceed to trial.In 2023, James sued James sued DCG and its CEO Barry Silbert, DCG’s now-bankrupt lending arm Genesis Global Capital and its former CEO Michael Moro and crypto exchange Gemini, alleging that they worked together to cover up a gaping $1 billion hole in Genesis’ balance sheet caused by the wipe-out of Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) in 2022.James said DCG and…

Attorneys for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Binance asked a federal judge on Friday to continue a pause in the regulator’s case against the crypto exchange for another two months, citing “productive discussions.” The SEC sued Binance in 2023, alleging the exchange — alongside its U.S. affiliate and executives such as former CEO Changpeng Zhao — violated federal securities laws by operating as an unlicensed clearing agency, broker and exchange. The SEC also alleged commingling and that Binance.US’s trading volume was manipulated. In February, after U.S. President Donald Trump retook office and appointed Commissioner Mark Uyeda as acting…

Tariffs, tariffs, tariffs.Trump’s on-again, off-again import levies dominated the week. At the beginning, tariffs sent stocks and crypto appreciably lower. By the end, with all new non-China tariffs paused for 90 days, markets were up again.Bitcoin returned to a level ($82,000) that it was at this time last week. And analysts debated whether, in the panic of the previous days, it showed “safe haven” qualities (like gold) or whether it was a risk-asset like many others. The consensus was that bitcoin performed resiliently rather than completely reassuringly.Our Asia reporting team led the way on our markets coverage. Omkar Godbole started…