Lombard to Launch Bitcoin Smart Accounts for Institutions

Lombard said it plans to launch Bitcoin Smart Accounts, designed to allow Bitcoin held in institutional custody to be used as onchain collateral without moving the asset or transferring control to a third party. According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, following a launch this quarter, custodied Bitcoin will be recognized onchain through a receipt token, BTC.b, enabling institutions to access lending and liquidity venues while retaining legal ownership and existing custody arrangements. Lombard said the framework targets asset managers, corporate treasuries and other institutional holders whose Bitcoin (BTC) remains…

Bitcoin Fails To Pass $69,000 In A US Nonfarm Payrolls Reaction

Bitcoin (BTC) saw flash volatility around Wednesday’s Wall Street open as US jobs data came in well above expectations. Key points: Bitcoin attempts to rescue the day’s losses on the back of stronger US nonfarm payrolls data. Mixed signals result in risk assets diverging in their reactions to the numbers. Bitcoin traders stay wary of a deeper BTC price dip to come. Analysis: Fed interest-rate pause to “continue” Data from TradingView tracked a BTC price spike to nearly $69,000 which quickly retraced, extending daily losses past 4% at the time…

EU Targets Russian Crypto And Banks In Sweeping Sanctions

The European Union is finalizing a new package of sanctions aimed at closing loopholes that officials say have allowed Russia to use cryptocurrency to circumvent existing restrictions. The EU is seeking to “ban all cryptocurrency transactions with Russia” as part of the upcoming 20th sanctions package, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. Unlike previous efforts targeting Russia-linked entities spun out of already sanctioned platforms, the newly proposed measures are broader and are designed to close Russia’s crypto loophole entirely. “Any further listing of individual crypto asset service providers […] is therefore likely…

Danske Bank Opens Bitcoin and Ether ETPs to Clients

Danske Bank, the largest bank in Denmark and a major retail bank in Northern Europe with over five million customers, is allowing clients to buy Bitcoin and Ether exchange-traded products (ETPs) from BlackRock and WisdomTree via its eBanking and Mobile Banking platforms for the first time.  The new offering, announced Wednesday, is open to self-directed investors only — customers who trade on the bank’s platform without receiving investment advice — and is explicitly framed as a response to “increasing customer demand” and “improved regulation” in the wake of the European…

BlackRock acquires Uniswap’s UNI tokens as it enters DeFi

BlackRock has announced plans to trade its $180 billion BUIDL token on Uniswap, becoming the latest major financial institution to enter decentralized finance. The deal also includes the purchase of Uniswap’s UNI token. The partnership with Securitize enables institutional investors to trade using smart contracts and liquidity pools instead of centralized clearing systems. This reflects rising confidence in DeFi’s infrastructure. Trading will initially be limited to qualified purchasers and approved liquidity providers, meaning only a small group will participate at first. The setup is designed to test how traditional assets…

Stablecoin Conversion Costs Highest in Africa, Data Shows

Africa recorded the highest median stablecoin-to-fiat conversion spreads among tracked regions in January, according to data observed by payments infrastructure company Borderless.xyz, covering 66 currency corridors and nearly 94,000 rate observations. The regional median spread was 299 basis points, or about 3%, compared with about 1.3% in Latin America and 0.07% in Asia. In Africa, conversion costs ranged from about 1.5% in South Africa to nearly 19.5% in Botswana.  The data measures “spreads,” or the gap between a provider’s buy and sell rate for a stablecoin-to-fiat pair. Similar to a…

Sam Bankman-Fried Alleges DOJ Silenced Key Witnesses in New Trial Bid

Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried claims to have “new evidence“ that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) under former President Joe Biden silenced key witnesses in his fraud case, as he pushes for a new trial. “New evidence shows that Biden’s DOJ threatened multiple witnesses into silence or into changing their testimony. My conviction should be thrown out,“ said SBF in his latest X post from prison on Wednesday. He linked to a court filing seeking a new trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33. The motion, submitted Thursday, references a…

US nonfarm payrolls double forecast with 130K jobs added

US employers added 130,000 jobs in January, nearly doubling the 65,000 consensus forecast and signaling unexpected resilience in the labor market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency tracking employment data, reported the unemployment rate dipped to 4.3%, below the anticipated 4.4%. Healthcare drove much of the gain, contributing 82,000 positions, while social assistance added another 42,000. Federal government payrolls fell by 34,000, extending a decline that began in late 2024. Private-sector hiring reached 172,000, far exceeding the 68,000 projected by economists. The Federal Reserve monitors nonfarm payroll data…

This XRP Indicator Warns That Price May Crash Below $1: Analyst

XRP (XRP)  has retraced nearly 63% from its multi-year high of $3.66 to trade at $1.36 on Wednesday, a technical setup that may have bearish implications for its price, according to a market analyst.   Key takeaways: XRP appeared bearish below $1.40, with chart technicals pointing to a further drop toward $0.70-$1. Persistent spot XRP ETFs inflows, whale accumulation and a surge in active addresses could invalidate the bearish outlook. Where will XRP price bottom? In a Tuesday post on X, Chart Nerd said that previous fractals from the monthly Gaussian…

Why Blockchain TPS Numbers Often Collapse in the Real World

Blockchain transactions per second (TPS) numbers are often treated as a performance gauge, but they don’t tell the full story of whether a network can scale in practice. Carter Feldman, founder of Psy Protocol and a former hacker, told Cointelegraph that TPS figures are often misleading because they ignore how transactions are actually verified and relayed across decentralized systems. “Many pre-mainnet, testnet or isolated benchmarking tests measure TPS with only one node running. At that point, you might as well call Instagram a blockchain that can hit 1 billion TPS…