Author: admin

Nigel Farage said he plans to bring crypto in from the cold.The comments mark his latest commitment to the industry.But not everyone’s happy to be associated with him.Nigel Farage says he will make London a crypto hotbed “when I’m in Number 10.”The Reform Party leader made the pledge on stage during the Zebu Live conference in London on Wednesday. “I want to bring in digital assets and crypto from the cold in London, to have that regulatory framework under which everybody can operate,” Farage told the audience.Farage’s fireside chat is the latest in a string of public pro-crypto performances. Farage,…

Ethereum transactions can now be preconfirmed in just a fraction of a second with new tech from an Ethereum infrastructure platform.Primev says its FAST RPC (Remote Procedure Call) allows transactions to be preconfirmed and set for inclusion in blocks in under 200ms — enabling everything from Ether (ETH) transfers and interacting with smart contracts to minting non-fungible tokens (NFTs) at “blazing speed.”Preconfirmation is an early signal from a block builder indicating a transaction will likely be included in the next block, while block inclusion refers to a transaction being added into a block.RPCs like FAST RPC connect crypto wallets to…

The cryptocurrency industry has grown from a niche experiment into a maturing global market, according to VC Giant a16z’s State of Crypto 2025 report released Wednesday.“This is the year the world came on-chain,” the authors wrote, describing a feedback loop between prices, innovation, and participation. Bitcoin holds more than half the crypto market cap, while stablecoins rival Visa in volume.Institutions and Stablecoins Drive Structural ShiftAccording to the a16z report, this transformation is being fueled by major institutions and stablecoin adoption. Circle’s market cap climbed past $50 billion after its IPO. Sponsored SponsoredBlackRock expanded tokenized money-market funds, and Fidelity began testing…

When I worked at the Federal Reserve, we used to joke that our job was to protect the status quo. The Fed’s mandate has long included financial stability, certainly not financial disruption. But Fed Governor Chris Waller’s speech calling on Fed staff to research the creation of a new “payments account” for nonbank payment providers at this week’s Fed Payments Innovation Conference marks the first serious challenge to the assumption that only banks get to move money in America and who is allowed access to the Fed’s balance sheet.When I wrote in 2023 that “stablecoins are the battleground for the…

T. Rowe Price, a mainstay of investment management, has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch an actively managed crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) that will provide exposure to multiple digital assets.This high-profile move arrives during a period marked by regulatory delays, but traditional financial institutions are eager to advance. An increasing number of ETF filings signals the growing urgency and changing attitudes across the industry as legacy firms position themselves for the future of crypto investing.Sponsored SponsoredT. Rowe Price Files to Launch Active Crypto ETFT. Rowe Price is a legacy asset manager founded in 1937. The firm…

In brief Stanford’s PRIMA chip restores sight to patients once considered incurable. The wireless implant converts light into signals the brain can read. Human trials show restored reading and face recognition ability. After decades of trial and error, scientists at Stanford Medicine have given blind patients something rare in medicine—a second chance at sight.Their wireless PRIMA implant, described this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, uses invisible light and a chip the size of a grain of rice to restore reading vision to people with advanced macular degeneration.Led by Stanford physicist and biomedical engineer Daniel Palanker, the PRIMA…

Bitcoin erases nearly all of Tuesday’s gains as the Trump administration reportedly considers a potential escalation in its trade war with China.After Tuesday’s quick rally following Fed governor Christopher Waller’s upbeat comments on crypto, markets fell sharply on Wednesday, Oct. 22, as reports surfaced that the Trump administration may limit a wide range of tech exports to China in response to Beijing’s rare-earth metals restrictions, sending U.S. stocks lower.Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen back to around $108,000, erasing most of its 5% rally from the previous day that briefly pushed prices near $114,000.BTC 24-hour price chart. Source: CoinGeckoEthereum (ETH) also pulled…

In brief 60% of Australians still say they don’t trust crypto, up from 57% in 2024. Labor’s reform package spans exchange licensing, stablecoin oversight, and payments modernization. Swyftx projects millions of new investors once regulation is finalized. Crypto adoption in Australia has stalled, despite the incumbent Albanese government rolling out some of the most ambitious digital asset reforms in the country’s history.The fifth annual Australian Crypto Survey, released on Wednesday by crypto exchange Swyftx, found that ownership remains flat among adults, with trust in digital assets continuing to slide.Nearly 60% of Australians say they don’t trust crypto, up from 57%…

American sports betting platform DraftKings is tapping Polymarket as the clearinghouse for its new prediction market, an industry that clocks over $4 billion in monthly trading volume.“Congrats to DraftKings on their acquisition of Railbird. We’re proud for Polymarket Clearing to be their designated clearinghouse as they enter the prediction market space,” Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan said in an X post on Wednesday.Railbird is a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-regulated predictions market platform, which DraftKings acquired for an undisclosed amount on Tuesday.Polymarket’s clearinghouse is needed to verify trades, hold collateral and ensure all bets or contracts are settled fairly and securely —…

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is whisking the vast majority of its staff off to an idyllic Caribbean island in January of next year, to energize the firm ahead of a much-anticipated listing in the U.S. next year, according to two people familiar with the plans.A person familiar with the plans requested that the exact location of the team-building jaunt not be published for security reasons.Kraken has also handed all its employees a special one-off bonus, according to the sources.The positive vibes will be a tonic, given that earlier this year, Kraken was reported to have cut “hundreds” of staff.Kraken declined to…