Author: Coindesk

Risk assets such as bitcoin (BTC), xrp (XRP), solana (SOL) are back in focus as President Donald Trump warned of even more reciprocal tariffs if other countries collude to do “economic harm” to the U.S.”If the European Union works with Canada in order to do economic harm to the USA,” he wrote in a Truth Social post in early Asian hours Thursday, “large scale Tariffs, far larger than currently planned, will be placed on them both in order to protect the best friend that each of those two countries has ever had!””Liberation day in America is coming, soon,” Trump wrote…

whichHyperliquidity Provider (HLP), a market making vault that is a part of derivatives exchange HyperLiquid, faced a grueling loss after a trader allegedly manipulated the price of the JELLY token. HyperLiquid’s native token (HYPE) fell by 20% after HLP’s unrealized PNL temporarily stood at negative $13.5 million.According to Lookonchain, a trader that held $4.85 million of the JELLY token combined a short trader on HyperLiquid with on-chain spot buys, this liquidated the position on HyperLiquid and essentially meant HLP inherited that short position.HLP is an automated market making bot that ties in with the exchanges liquidation engine.The trader then aggressively…

There’s never been a better time to allocate money to crypto hedge funds.That’s according to Chris Solarz, the chief investment officer of digital assets at Amitis Capital, a firm which runs a crypto-focused fund of funds — meaning a fund that specializes in allocating capital to various money managers.“This is the golden age for crypto hedge fund investing,” said Solarz, who used to be responsible for almost $8 billion in allocations at investor advisory firm Cliffwater, in an interview with CoinDesk. “It’s an alignment of the stars. This beta, this secular tailwind… blockchain as a whole has such potential. At…

BlackRock is looking to add more people to its digital asset team as the industry grows in popularity among Wall Street firms.Since the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, big names in finance have taken several steps to expand their presence in crypto. While BlackRock has long been a pioneer in the space, especially among traditional financial banks, the asset manager seems to have more in store.Four roles on BlackRock’s digital asset team were added to its website on Wednesday, including Director of Digital Assets, Director of Regulatory Affairs, Vice President for Digital Asset and ETF Legal Counsel and Associate…

WASHINGTON, D.C. — World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the financial protocol backed by President Donald Trump and his family, pitched its own stablecoin at a Washington crypto event on Wednesday, where lawmakers also attended to give the industry updates on their progress with U.S. policy efforts.Behind the three co-founders of WLFI, Donald Trump Jr. connected via video, delivering some general cheerleading to the digital assets technology underpinning the business.”I’m just super excited about what this can mean for the future of banking, for the future of the financial systems,” Trump said. “I was sort of the beneficiary of the old way…

Just 24 hours after adding its name to the roster of companies pursuing a bitcoin (BTC) treasury strategy, GameStop (GME) — led by its CEO Ryan Cohen — is also adding its name to those firms issuing convertible debt to raise funds for BTC acquisition.The $1.3 billion of convertible senior notes will have a five-year maturity, according to a press release, and the underwriter greenshoe is for up to an additional $200 million. The paper will come with a 0% coupon.”GameStop expects to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, including the acquisition of bitcoin in…

Wyoming state is making steps towards launching a stablecoin later this year, which could be the first fiat-backed and fully reserved token issued by a public entity in the U.S., state officials said at the DC Blockchain Summit on Wednesday.The Wyoming Stable Token (WYST) is currently being tested on Avalanche, Solana, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon and Coinbase’s Base testnets, according to a press release. The state is working with LayerZero, a blockchain interoperability firm, to facilitate token deployment across these networks, said Wyoming Stable Token Commission Executive Director Anthony Apollo on stage.Speaking at the event, Governor Mark Gordon and Apollo…

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Ben Schiller.In this issue:Ethereum’s Final Pectra Test Goes LiveHyperliquid Eases Token Transfers for DeFiCelo Migration to Layer-2 Network Is DoneBitcoin DeFi Expansion Faces Fork DilemmaThis article is featured in the latest issue of The Protocol, our weekly newsletter exploring the tech behind crypto, one block at a time. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday.Network newsIT’S ALIVE! ETHEREUM PECTRA TEST: The final dress rehearsal for Ethereum’s upcoming Pectra upgrade occurred Wednesday, as the blockchain’s biggest changes in over a…

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Unicoin CEO Alex Konanykhin said he’s asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to pull its investigation against the crypto operation and hasn’t yet received a response.Unicoin represented a final shot against the industry from previous Chair Gary Gensler’s SEC, which informed the firm in an official notice late last year that the regulator intended to accuse it of fraud, deceptive practices and handling unregistered securities. The investigation was announced in the final days of President Joe Biden’s administration in December, before the SEC’s leadership was taken over by those selected by crypto fan President Donald Trump.The…

The U.S. Congress’ opening priority for the crypto industry is to quickly finish a stablecoin oversight bill, and the House of Representatives has released the text of its version on Wednesday, following in the heels of a recent committee approval of its Senate counterpart.The House version, introduced by Rep. Bryan Steil, who leads the House Financial Services Committee’s crypto panel, and Rep. French Hill, the Republican chair of the overall committee, governs the way companies can issue dollar-denominated digital tokens.The new version will “close the gap” between the House efforts and the Senate version of the bill, Steil said during…