Author: Coindesk

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to establish a strategic bitcoin(BTC) reserve that includes BTC seized by the U.S. government through law enforcement actions.White House crypto and AI czar David Sacks said on X that the stockpile will also include other coins forfeited in criminal or civil proceedings while stressing that no taxpayer money will spent on acquiring BTC or other coins.According to Arkham Intelligence, the U.S. government currently holds 198,000 bitcoins worth about $17.3 billion. Treating the same as reserve essentially takes out over $17 billion in selling pressure from the market.Still, bitcoin extended losses, hitting…

Crypto asset manager and ETF provider Bitwise has made its first allocation into decentralized finance (DeFi) through a partnership with on-chain credit specialist Maple Finance, the companies said on Thursday.Bitwise’s allocation, the size of which was not disclosed, is leveraging a Maple bitcoin-backed lending product, and represents a significant milestone in the adoption of on-chain credit by institutional allocators, said Maple CEO Sid Powell. Maple’s BTC backed lending product is available to accredited investors in the U.S.As digital versions of real world assets become a normal component of traditional finance, firms are looking beyond things like tokenized Treasury Bills, particularly…

Sam Altman’s blockchain venture, World Network, is breaking into the messaging game with its newest feature: World Chat.The new feature, a “mini app” accessible via the World App wallet, will offer special features to holders of World Network’s digital passport, which lets users scan their iris in exchange for an account that verifies their “proof-of-personhood.”World Chat is the latest iteration of World’s ongoing quest to help people discern bots from humans in the age of AI. “By connecting to World ID, World Chat allows you to know when you’re chatting with a verified human,” World developer Tools for Humanity said…

Shares of bitcoin (BTC) miner Core Scientific (CORZ) were down 15% in pre-market on Thursday after reports that Microsoft (MSFT) has pulled back from some agreements with soon to listed cloud computing firm CoreWeave.Last month, Core Scientific said it was planning a $1.2 billion data center expansion with CoreWeave. This week, CoreWeave filed for an intital public offering, hoping to raise $4 billion at a $35 billion valuation.According to an FT article, CoreWeave, which supplies artificial intelligence (AI) computing power to Microsoft, was facing delivery issues and missed deadlines, causing the tech giant to reduce its commitments, though it remains…

After two buggy test runs of Pectra, Ethereum’s biggest upgrade since 2024, the network’s developers decided on Thursday to postpone the upgrade pending further tests.Pectra, which was planned as Ethereum faced mounting pressure to compete with other blockchains, contains a slate of upgrades designed to improve Ethereum’s speed and ease of use.When developers inked in the test dates for Pectra in January, they agreed to use the Thursday, Mar. 6 call to set a date for Pectra to go live on the mainnet. If all went well, the expectation was that the upgrade would go live in March.The decision to…

President Donald Trump has directed his administration to establish a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve to hold the assets that have been seized by the government, and he’s additionally called for a crypto stockpile of other types of assets.At this point, all of the assets contemplated by the order would be those seized in civil or criminal forfeitures. The bitcoin will be stored for long-term value in what was termed a “digital Fort Knox.””The Reserve will be capitalized with Bitcoin owned by the federal government that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings,” said David Sacks, Trump’s crypto…

Four and half years ago, when Zain Zaidi was applying to grad school, he submitted his academic transcripts. But, through an administrative error, the documents were lost, and he almost lost his place. Understanding how someone’s life could be altered by not being able to prove something like an academic credential, Zaidi set out to try and make it easier. Instead of going to grad school, Zaidi started TransCrypts, which helps companies verify employment information. The blockchain-powered startup recently won CoinDesk’s Pitchfest at Consensus Hong Kong.Zaidi says if we’re not able to prove data about ourselves, we give up something…

The latest in a series of reversed tariff threats by President Trump isn’t having the hoped-for effect on risk markets at least halfway through the U.S. trading day on Thursday.The stock market initially bounced off a sharply lower opening and bitcoin (BTC) rose through $91,000 as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — in an appearance on CNBC — said the president would exempt Mexico from his new 25% tariff for any goods or services covered under a previous trade agreement. The nicer stance toward the country’s neighbor to the south was confirmed later by a social media post from Trump.The positive moves…

The industry’s ongoing campaign against the debanking of crypto businesses and leaders has secured a legislative push from a top U.S. senator, Tim Scott, who is championing a bill that would cut out federal banking regulators’ ability to use “reputational risk” as a reason to steer banks away from customers.That practice had been cited by Republicans as a problem area in recent congressional hearings, which examined how digital assets businesses had been systematically cut out of U.S. banking relationships because of perceptions that the regulators — including the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller…

Several U.S. states are getting closer to putting public money into cryptocurrencies effort, spurred by President Donald Trump since he announced plans to do the same on a federal level. And Texas is now among the leading contenders.On Thursday, the Texas state senate passed the so-called SB 21 bill which would allow the state to invest some of the public’s money into digital assets, specifically bitcoin (BTC).Bitcoin, according to a statement from Texas Senator Charles Schwertner last week, “has proven itself through multiple boom and bust cycles,” making it a great reserve asset in times of a “devastating national deficit”…