Author: Coindesk

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”…

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried suggested on Thursday in an interview with conservative pundit Tucker Carlson that one of the reasons he’d been given a harsh prison sentence was because he was getting closer to the Republican Party in the lead-up to his arrest.“One fact that might be relevant. In 2020 I was center-left and I gave to Biden’s campaign,” he said. “I was optimistic he’d be a sort of solid center-left President. I spent the next few years in [Washington] DC a lot. I made dozens of trips there, and was really, really shocked by what I saw, not…

The $1.5 billion hack of Bybit — the largest in crypto history — has put the entire industry on high alert. The attack, reportedly carried out by North Korea’s Lazarus Group, resulted in the theft of over 401,000 ETH, reinforcing the reality that no exchange is safe from sophisticated cyber threats, and any platform can be at risk.Bybit’s response is critical. The positive takeaway is that Bybit has re-established a 1:1 asset backing for its clients and closed the “ether gap.” However, this temporary situation — where users shoulder the burden of centralized exchange (CEX) security failures could drive staking…

Today, hundreds of millions of people own bitcoin and other tokens hosted on blockchains worth trillions of dollars.Increasingly, though, blockchains host far more than tokens. In fact, blockchains are our future tech stack, and they can host sophisticated Web apps too, which live fully-onchain, just like tokens. These apps are implemented entirely from network-resident code (i.e. smart contract software and its evolutions).This has huge potential: by the end of 2025, more than 5 billion people will own internet-connected smartphones with Web browsers. So what might drive them to create and use fully-onchain web apps, which can sport seamless Web3 functionality?I…

Blockchain-based asset management firm Superstate said on Thursday it has registered its digital transfer agent, Superstate Services LLC, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a move aimed at bridging tokenized assets with existing financial regulations.Transfer agents help issuers manage shareholder records, process transactions, and distribute dividends. As securities increasingly move on-chain, digital transfer agents play a critical role in maintaining compliance and governance. Superstate Services will use blockchain-integrated record-keeping to track ownership in real time. A smart contract-driven allowlist will ensure that only approved investors can acquire tokenized shares.”Through this innovative approach, Superstate advances tokenized security compliance while…

In today’s issue, Christopher Jensen from Franklin Templeton cuts through some of the noise and misconceptions about crypto investing in today’s myth-busting article.Then, Pablo Larguia from SenseiNode answers questions about staking rewards in Ask an Expert.–Sarah MortonYou’re reading Crypto for Advisors, CoinDesk’s weekly newsletter that unpacks digital assets for financial advisors. Subscribe here to get it every Thursday.Myth Busting: 3 Things Investors Are Still Getting Wrong About CryptoCryptocurrencies have been around for over a decade but remain largely misunderstood by the investment community. In this article, we dispel a few of the biggest myths about crypto to help you assess…

The native token of Sui (SUI) surged on Thursday on news that Trump-affiliated decentralized finance protocol World Liberty Financial (WLFI) stroke a “strategic reserve deal” with the layer-1 blockchain project.The agreement includes WLFI adding Sui assets to its crypto holdings, the announcement said. The two projects will also explore “product development opportunities.” SUI jumped as much as 10% to near $3 before paring gains. Still it was up about 13% in the past 24 hours, being the best-performing asset in the broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index.”We chose Sui for its American-born innovation combined with impressive scale and adoption,” said Zak Folkman,…

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 2966.55, up 1.0% (+29.05) since 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday.Ten of 20 assets are trading higher.Leaders: NEAR (+4.4%) and XRP (+4.0%).Laggards: ADA (-5.6%) and APT (-5.1%). The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally. Read the full article here

Lombard Finance’s liquid-staking bitcoin token, LBTC, will launch on the Sui blockchain on Thursday, marking its first expansion to a non-Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible chain.The expansion extends LBTC beyond the blockchains it currently uses, which include Ethereum, Base, and BNB chains. The token is meant to install bitcoin as collateral on decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, which on Sui currently have around $1.3 billion in total value locked (TVL).Bringing LBTC to Sui means that users on the network will have access to bitcoin staking rewards while being able to leverage the tokens across its decentralized finance protocols, according to a…