Author: Coindesk

The last time Justin Sun set foot in the U.S. he was Grenada’s WTO ambassador and was navigating the rocky waters of former President Biden’s crypto crackdown.Times have changed. Now, he’s dining at an event hosted by President Donald Trump for the largest holders of his TRUMP memecoin and celebrating a regulatory breakthrough, as issuers eye a potential Tron ETF, signaling a striking reversal in crypto’s American fortunes.Speaking exclusively with CoinDesk after the Presidential dinner, which was met by protestors, the Tron founder dismissed allegations that the token is a vehicle for bribery. He called skeptics short-sighted, arguing Trump’s embrace…

Bitcoin (BTC) project Roxom Global is building a BTC-denominated securities exchange and a 24/7 media network dedicated entirely to bitcoin.Roxom has raised $7.9 million in investment for its exchange from Draper Associates, Borderless Capital, ego death and Kingsway Capital and $10 million in a private funding round for RoxomTV, according to an announcement shared with CoinDesk on Thursday.It is building a bitcoin-denominated exchange with futures, spot markets and synthetic instruments priced and settled in BTC. Roxom aims to “bring Bitcoin standards to global finance,” CEO Borja Martel Seward said in the announcement.The exchange is focused on Latin America, Europe and…

The skalds of Bitcoin Twitter have sung of the historic moment, the “first real world purchase” with bitcoin, and pundits have etched the story into the internet’s memory with headlines about the infamous Bitcoin Pizza Purchase, now dearly valued at more than $1 billion.But what if I told you that Hanyecz spent nearly 10 times more bitcoin following the historic purchase? And, what if I told you that perhaps Hanyecz did so as ostensible penance for his much more consequential contribution to Bitcoin in its uncertain infancy?He was a Bitcoin technical pioneerThe penumbra of Hanyecz’s Pizza Day purchase has overshadowed…

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 3347.55, up 4.5% (+143.83) since 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday.All 20 assets are trading higher.Leaders: AVAX (+11.2%) and NEAR (+7.9%).Laggards: SUI (+2.4%) and XRP (+2.5%).The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally. Read the full article here

World Liberty Financial, the crypto project backed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s family, announced Wednesday that it bought BUILDon (B), sparking a 1,340% move in the BNB Chain token.The purchase came after BUILDon announced it would be using WLFI’s USD1 stablecoin to create real-world use cases.”We just bought some $B to support the BUILDon team,” World Liberty Financial wrote in a social media post. “Love seeing projects choose $USD1 as their base pair — faster settlement, deeper liquidity, and growing every day. We hope to see more tokens make the switch,” the post added. Data from Arkham shows that World…

The first-ever U.S.-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking XRP futures on a one-to-one basis started trading on the Nasdaq exchange on Thursday.The Volatility Shares XRP ETF (XRPI) has a gross expense ratio of 1.15% and a net expense ratio after fee waivers of 0.94%.The fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in XRP futures contracts and shares of other XRP-linked ETPs, according to a prospectus. Volatility Shares also plans to also launch a leveraged 2x XRP futures ETF where it would join the Teucrium (XXRP), which opened for business in April..XXRP has so far pulled in $121 million in…

Kraken plans to list tokenized shares of Nvidia, Apple, Tesla and over 50 other U.S. stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the Wall Street Journal reported.The tokens, deployed on Solana , will be known under the name “xStocks” and will be available to trade 24/7 for investors all across the world. Some of the ETFs that will be available to trade include the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, and the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD).The stocks will be represented by real shares held by Backed Finance and can be redeemed 1:1 for their cash value.Kraken had…

Robinhood has added two Solana-based memecoins, Moo Deng and cat in a dog’s world , to its suite of cryptocurrencies available to trade for U.S. customers.Moo Deng, which is based on a baby pygmy hippo, has risen to a $230 million market cap this month after the meme went viral online in 2024. The token skyrocketed over 836% in May and jumped another 21% over the past 24 hours.Cat in a dog’s world, on the other hand, is a token based on cats, which launched in March 2024 as part of a Solana meme coin frenzy. The token stands at…

WASHINGON, D.C. — Congressional Democrats threatened lawsuits, introduced legislation and planned protests in the lead-up to U.S. President Donald Trump’s memecoin dinner.Trump, whose affiliated businesses issued the $TRUMP memecoin just days before he was inaugurated for his second term, announced he would host the 220 largest holders of his token for a dinner at the Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia on Thursday, leading to a price spike as interested parties immediately bought more tokens to secure an invite.Critics called the move corrupt, pointing to the fact that foreign buyers who otherwise could not legally donate money to…

Tokenized asset platform Centrifuge said it’s expanding services on the Solana blockchain, starting with the $400 million tokenized U.S. Treasury fund managed by Anemoy (JTRSY).The expansion builds on Centrifuge’s token standard — dubbed “deRWA tokens” — that allows token holders to freely transfer and use tokenized instruments across decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.In this case, the deJTRSY token can be swapped, lent, or used as collateral in, enables Solana users to earn yield from short-term Treasuries natively in Solana DeFi platforms, first on decentralized exchange Raydium, lending platform Kamino, and yield aggregator Lulo.The rollout underlines Solana’s growing momentum in the tokenized…